Last week, we published a commentary by Lee Hamilton titled “Fake news is a danger to democracy”.
Quoting Hamilton: “Our representative democracy depends on ordinary people making sound judgments about politicians and policy. This is hard to do at the best of times. Issues are complex. Being able to sort out what matters and what’s a diversion takes knowledge and judgment.
Being a full citizen in a representative democracy depends on accurate information — and the ability to discern what’s reliable and what’s not.
To fold into that mix deliberately false news makes the citizen’s task much more difficult — maybe even impossible. Yet astoundingly, that’s where we find ourselves now.”
Fake news… real guns
The fake news phenomenon feeds the beast of extremism. As a matter of fact, I feel as though I see more extremism or at least extremist views supported and shared on Facebook than ever before. It’s almost as if Facebook has been hijacked by an extremism convoy. I hope that Mark Zuckerberg realizes he’s running one of those extremist blog websites that is plagued with credibility issues. He should really consider purchasing the domain name www.fakebook.com.
A December 5, 2016, New York Times article titled “In Washington Pizzeria Attack, Fake News Brought Real Guns”, demonstrated the threat of inaccurate information consumed by those who want to believe the “news” they consume.
“Edgar M. Welch, a 28-year-old father of two from Salisbury, N.C., recently read online that Comet Ping Pong, a pizza restaurant in northwest Washington, was harboring young children as sex slaves as part of a child-abuse ring led by Hillary Clinton,” reported Cecila Kang and Adam Goldman of the New York Times.
After reading and believing this fake news story, Edgar M. Welch showed up at the pizza restaurant to threaten workers with an assault-like AR-15 rifle.
“Debunking false news articles can sometimes stoke the outrage of the believers, leading fake news purveyors to feed that appetite with more misinformation. Efforts by social media companies to control the spread of these stories are limited, and shutting one online discussion thread down simply pushes the fake news creators to move to another space online,” shared the New York Times article.
Fake news. Real guns.
Print vs. Online
The issues revolving around fake news actually legitimizes one of the most significant differences between print media and the online world — accountability.
With the Internet, there is little accountability. If a story is posted online, it can be deleted just as quickly as it was posted. Authors of online-only content are often also more likely to throw a skunk on the table with little to back it up — usually driven by a personal agenda but misrepresented as objective journalism.
But, when it is in print, there is permanence. If there is any incorrect information printed, readers notice and request a correction in the next available print edition. And, a printed publication may be retained for future reflection — no delete button. Printing off an online article as a keepsake just isn’t the same as the real deal in print. Anything online is here and gone in a moment. And, good luck connecting with the source of an inaccurate online post. Many operate with anonymity.
The bottom line is that there is little accountability with anything posted on the Internet. And, meanwhile, print media is held to a higher standard, which I consider to be a good thing.
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