In the ideal world, everything we read in the news would be all factual and true, with no mistakes and errors. But however this is not the reality.As per the wikipedia entry on journalism wrote very well:
“Many debates centre on whether journalists are “supposed” to be “objective” and “neutral”; arguments include the fact that journalists produce news out of and as part of a particular social context, and that they are guided by professional codes of ethics and do their best to represent all legitimate points of view. Additionally, the ability to render a subject’s complex and fluid narrative with sufficient accuracy is sometimes challenged by the time available to spend with subjects, the affordances or constraints of the medium used to tell the story, and the evolving nature of people’s identities.”
For me, true journalism is simply reported “as is”, with no added opinion, commentary, adjectives. If a person said, “1+1=3”, it does not matter if the “1+1=3” is untruthful or factually wrong – the journalist at most can simply write that “the person claimed 1+1=3″.
What is Fake News?Fake news refers to stories, information, articles that are invented, and made up. Which means, there are no sources, or the sources are also made up (fake news usually uses “anonymous sources” or “from sources close to ___”).
Fake news are highly frowned upon and it is against the rules of the group to share fake news.
What is Disinformation?Disinformation are fake news, but with the intention to manipulate public opinion. This is most commonly used by communist regimes’ propaganda. This is a lot less common nowadays, due to the availability of internet for people to quickly fact check information.Disinformation (and fake news at large) nowadays thrive in places like whatsapp, twitter and facebook that allow information to be forwarded quickly without added consideration from the reader (usually low information reader).
What is Misinformation?Misinformation are news that are written to be seemingly factual, but edited in with false/inaccurate information, with the intention to manipulate public opinion. This is also the majority of type of news that Trump famously claimed as “fake news” to the puzzlement of people who dont like him.
“Prior research suggest it can be very difficult to undo the effects of misinformation once individuals believe it to be true and fact checking can even backfire. Attempting to correct the wrongly held belief is difficult because the misinformation may suit someone’s motivational or cognitive reasons. Motivational reasons include the desire to arrive at a foregone conclusion, so accepting information that supports that conclusion. Cognitive reasons may be that the misinformation provides scaffolding for an incident or phenomenon, and is thus part of the mental model for consideration. In this instance, it is necessary to correct the misinformation by not only refuting it, but also by providing accurate information that can also function in the mental model.”
Misinformation is especially difficult to “catch”, because it is highly dependent on the reader’s information diet and time spent in the subject.
“the factors that lead to recognizing misinformation is the amount of education a person has and the information literacy they have. This means if a person has more knowledge in the subject being investigated, or are familiar with the process of how the information is researched and presented, then they are more likely to identify misinformation.”
Especially now that in the USA, the political divide and complicity of the news media in their attempt to influence politics, has drastically increased the amount of misinformation, as well as opinions being peddled as news. And due to years of cultivation, many readers are unable to identify and realize all the opinions added within articles, are actually manipulating their opinion on any subject matter.
“When readers believe something to be true before researching it, they are more likely to believe information that supports these prior beliefs or opinions. This phenomenon may lead readers who otherwise are skilled at evaluating credible sources and facts to believe misinformation.”
Fighting Back With Journalistic ValuesIt is under such a climate of distrust and poor journalism within media, that it is imperative for us to keep our minds open to all information, regardless of media sources.Recommendations:
- Ignore media outlet – do not be distracted by which media outlet wrote the article, because your political bias might actually cause you to read only misinformation from the other side of the political divide; or even deny factual information, resulting in believing the opposite to be true, marring your judgement
- Ignore adjectives – do not let adjectives used within articles to confuse your judgement. If possible, analysis should be done without the use of adjectives. For example, “Dave falsely claimed…” or “Peter lied…”
- Be suspicious of editorial claims – whenever the writer of the article claimed something to be true, a foregone conclusion or a fact of something that is still in contention, its always a good idea just to take a pinch of salt – and be aware that, that is an opinion of the writer.
- Be wary of additional context – the media tends to add context for you on any piece of news, be it for a statement from a person, or something that happened. The context given CAN be (and often) used to great effect to manipulate public judgement and opinion.
- If possible, read both sides of the story – This is understandably difficult and painful. But understanding the narrative from both sides of the political divides or adversarial factions, can allow a more holistic view of the situation.
- Avoid conclusions – aka giving the benefit of the doubt. As news are always developing, information often are incomplete, its always a good idea to acknowledge everything as “this is what we know so far”, rather than establishing a conclusion in your mind that will later be difficult to accept any new revelations.
- Treat everything you read as tidbits of information to form your macro view – like in intelligence agencies, we should collect information from all available sources, sieve out the noise, and crystallize the information to provide ourselves with the most complete possible analysis of the situation or a given subject.
The above is what I can think off right now (the above is what I use personally whenever I read any piece of news). I will add more if I think of any other advise I could recommend.
