There are ways to find what's real and not
It used to be easy to spot fake news when the Loch Ness Monster roamed the Earth, aliens kidnapped ordinary citizens, and Elvis was spotted from here to China. But the veracity of today’s headlines is harder to detect.
Since the presidential election last year, fake news has become a part of the national conversation, a term widely used by President Trump to describe various mainstream media outlets.
Fake news can be all fake or all false, or a bit of both. The made-up stories often times possess a measure of truth, written to resemble credible journalism by random people with personal Internet addresses. These stories are used to gain maximum attention and advertising revenue.
It’s these types of stories that are routinely spread across social media platforms and potentially can cause doubt in readers of mainstream media.
One example was the Aug. 4 story by Political Insider that reported WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said Hillary Clinton and the State Department armed Islamic jihadists, including ISIS, during her time as Secretary of State. The story, which garnered 798,000 engagements according to Buzzfeed.com data, was partly true, partly altered.
What Assange actually said was that Clinton’s State Department had approved weapon shipments to Libya in 2011. It was only later that those weapons ended up in jihadists’ hands.
There are ways to tell if a news source is legitimate, Cal State Long Beach journalism professor Jennifer Fleming said. She said it's best to start with the byline and the source of the story – are they reliable? She said real news stories will show where they get the information.
“Look for verification, independence and accountability,” Fleming said. “So a journalist, someone dedicated to producing high quality journalism, would verify the information, and if they aren’t able to verify, they would let you know.
“Everything is transparent, as part of the narrative, as part of the story. Are they independent? Who's paying for it? Is it a public relations agency? Who is the source? Who is paying for the content?”
Fleming and fellow professor Robin Jones teach “Understanding News Media”, a class that delves into the fake news phenomenon and how to recognize the markers.
“I would say be skeptical of all news sources, including the New York Times and I would consider the New York Times one of the high-quality news organizations, the best in the country,” Fleming said. “But again, being a more skeptical news consumer look how they are covering it, who are they speaking with?”
Hannah Lyons, a child development major who is enrolled in Jones’ class, said fake news stories typically are either “really crazy or too good to be true.” In those cases, she said it’s best to check the source and opposing argument.
Morgan Joniffe, another of Jones’ students, said “It’s not easy for people to tell the difference.”
She’s not alone in that opinion.
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who recently spoke at CSULB, said that many students don’t have news literacy.
“(Without it) they can’t distinguish when something arrives on their Facebook page from the New York Times or Wall Street Journal or CNN versus a mastodonian website that pick pockets stories to get clicks,” Kristof said. “I also think Facebook has a responsibility to help readers make that distinction. I don’t think they’ve tried hard enough to do so.”
Facebook has taken steps to curb fake news on its site, giving users the ability to flag suspected stories and alert the website.
According to a Buzzfeed News study, shown in an informational graphic compiled by CSULB University Library, fake news was liked, shared, viewed or commented on 8.7 million times on Election Day on social media sites. Mainstream media had 7.3 million engagements on the same day.
The top fake election news story during the campaign was “Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Donald Trump for President, Releases Statement,” published by a website called Ending the Fed. It garnered 960,000 engagements.
Fleming said although fewer people are getting their news in printed form or on television, young people are consuming more news now than ever largely because they are exposed to more news sites via mobile devices. And that, she added, puts them in control of what they read.
Before the semester ends, Fleming shares with her students the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics, which tells reporters to “seek truth and report it.” Fleming said that adage could apply to Internet readers as well.
“If you believe an informed citizenry is essential for a democracy to perform well, you have the same powers through your social platforms and mobile to be journalists.
“You might not ever be a journalist, but you're going to consume journalism, and you might read something, then pass it along and that is the act of journalism.”
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