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More than ‘good journalism’ is needed to shred fake news

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The criteria for deeming a news story “fake” is arbitrary and ranging from articles sponsored by private interests to coverage of events that have never occurred. 

I believe the prevalence of these meritless stories comes from the circus that was the media coverage of the recent election. Perhaps the bickering between articles covering ridiculousness versus ridiculous articles has spotlighted the issue of where news outlets get their sources and where readers find their news.

Print advertising’s drop in revenue has been cited for the proliferation of fake news stories. Newspapers with large print-based audiences are also the people’s go-to sources long before the digital age.

Although legitimate news sources continue to operate and innovate on web platforms, social media platforms and search-engine algorithms that promote trending articles often with no regard to credibility have marginalized them.

The U.S. is storied when it comes to fake news drafted to influence the sociopolitical atmosphere, but now there are plenty of media that report current events. Also, the volume of fake news is almost too large to track. 

A recent study from Stanford University’s History Education Group provided a bleak outlook on students’ mastery in differentiating articles referencing sponsored content and articles hosted on websites with native advertising.

Google and Facebook specifically faced criticism since their advertising policies spread less-than-reputable content. It’s hard to argue that these companies and their colleagues should act as gatekeepers to information in general, but fake news stories abuse algorithms for advertising dollars.

They are the social-media equivalent of spam from the late ’90s.

The idea that “good journalism” is the cure for the rise in fake news sites is practical, but only in theory. The wheel is already in motion.

I don’t believe any grassroots support for journalists will stop fake news from maintaining a sliver of the market shared with news sources that, for decades, have provided credible news. 

I believe that reshaping the business model for search engines and social media platforms is the only effective change that would mitigate this trend. Whether they should comply with specific safeguards is another story and may rest solely on the goodwill of those companies’ culture.

After all, if these articles generate traffic and revenue, why should a corporation be held accountable for stopping a phenomenon whose impact that is difficult to measure objectively?

Opinion columnist Nicholas Bell is an MBA graduate student and can be reached at [email protected]

3 Comments

  • Perhaps instead of focusing so hard on preventing the production of fake news, we should work on educating consumers on how to recognize it. Having people know where to verify facts prevents them from sharing the first thing that pops up from americanpatriotlibertyactionnetwork.merica or progressiveliberalhillarypotus.org

  • Ask the fake news publishers how many of them are winning awards for their journalism? Um…zero. The reason is simple: fake news is not journalism. How many of the stories are “original” (rather than just regurgitations of some other story,) coming out of actual newsrooms attached to actual news agencies which have “bureaus” around the country and the globe? Again, zero. They are largely produced in isolation by wannabe hacks making money exploiting stupidity, desperation, and fear. There is money to be made in manufacturing phony news. Its driving force is greed, not the people’s right to know. They are the online equivalent of the National Enquirer. Yellow journalism has been with us since before the Civil War; the internet has simply provided it a ripe and fertile field in which to grow and prosper, but that does not legitimize it any more than cable TV makes “reality TV” authentic. Most of the “reporters” in fake news have zero training in news coverage and likely could never get an actual job in a newsroom. (Any mention of reporting for certain fake media outlets on their resumes would be a red flag to a hiring editor, trust me. ) Ethical, mainstream news companies will continue — as they should — to expose them. This is what good, watchdog journalism does, whether fake news devotees like it or not.

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