Seeking truth, 21st-century style
Recently the Oxford Dictionaries declared 鈥減ost-truth鈥� as the international word of the year. From Britain鈥檚 鈥淏rexit鈥� referendum to the American presidential election, worries have grown that people are losing some common definition of what is true.
Like garden weeds, websites offering often sensationalistic and emotionally charged headlines, and spreading unfounded rumors disguised as 鈥渇acts,鈥� have sprung up and threatened to crowd out traditional news sources. Citizens seem to be as clueless about what to believe online as the Bible鈥檚 Pontius Pilate, who in trying to judge Jesus was left wondering 鈥淲hat is truth?鈥�
A few years back a 鈥渇ake news anchor鈥� named Stephen Colbert on the TV comedy show 鈥淭he Colbert Report鈥� coined the term 鈥渢ruthiness鈥� to describe people who鈥檇 rather believe what they want to be true and avoid information that challenges their beliefs. Fake news stories can feed these impulses.
Concerns about fake news spreading online are legitimate. More and more people are getting most, in some cases all, of their news and information from online sources, often through social channels such as Facebook or Twitter.
Censoring news or appointing some arbiter to declare what is truthful won鈥檛 work and endangers the rights of citizens to a 鈥渇ree press.鈥�
So what can be done?
When going online people are already learning to guard their personal information such as passwords, financial data, and Social Security numbers. Reminders to 鈥渄on鈥檛 click!鈥� on suspicious links abound. These cautions need to extend to how people consume news and information as well. Parents should help children be discerning web users, and schools need to teach students online 鈥渕edia literacy.鈥� People of all ages must learn how to avoid the tares among the wheat (to use another biblical analogy) when consuming news.
Some efforts are already under way to make lists of obvious fake news sites, many of which have no higher motive than making money by writing anything outrageous enough to attract a 鈥渃lick.鈥�
Making lists of fake news sites is well-intentioned but problematic. Fake news sites can disappear quickly in one place and pop up under a new name elsewhere. More important, the list-making process itself could get list-makers into a tangle over how to decide which sites qualify.
Giving individuals tools that can help them make up their own minds about a website or shared story seems more likely to be productive. Efforts are already under way by scholars, librarians, and journalism organizations to do just that.
For example, when encountering an online story a reader could ask:
鈥hat is the source of this information? Even a quick check of the 鈥淎bout鈥� section on the site (or the absence of any such section) could be a clue to whether a story is legitimate.
鈥s the site carefully edited? Fake news sites often contain frequent spelling or grammatical errors.
鈥oes the story or site appeal more to emotions than to thoughtful reasoning, written in a way to provoke anger, for example? That鈥檚 one hallmark of fake news.
鈥s anyone else reporting this? Does the story provide links to original sources, such as a study, to back up its claims? If a story makes a claim that you haven鈥檛 heard elsewhere, take time to do some 鈥渢riangulation.鈥�
Responsible news readers can also pause before they repost an item on a social media site: A fake news headline may confirm the way you already feel on a subject, but have you read the story itself and deemed it to be well-researched and worth sharing? Passing along fake news only spreads misinformation.
More than a century ago this newspaper was founded to counteract the 鈥測ellow journalism鈥� of its day, which made sensational or even false claims to distort the truth. Today, online news readers must be their own discerning 鈥渘ews editors,鈥� rejecting the allure of the fake for a more accurate view of events.
