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Week 8 - Editorial on Untruthful News

 

How to spot Fake News Infographic


Fake News and You

Technology has advanced so much in the past few decades. Before, people were dependent on newspapers and news reports on the television to get the inside scoop on what was going on with the world. Nowadays, people have the ability to just look up information with just a few keystrokes on their phone. Anytime, anyplace. Unfortunately, with the growing convenience of the entire world's knowledge in the palm of your hand, the is also a growing increase on the amount of fake news.  

Fake news is exactly that. False news that is being presented as fact to the public. Fake news has become a growing issue over these past few years and it has only gotten worse since the COVID-19 pandemic has become widespread. 

There is not only the issue of fake news, but also a problem with biases. People who have strong biases tend to believe news that fits their agenda rather than listen to the truth even if it goes against their beliefs. According to Darrel M. West in his Brookings article, "How to combat Fake News and Disinformation," many news outlets have grown increasingly polarized which resulted in a steady decline trust in traditional journalism. 

One way that people can combat the threat of fake news, is to encourage the news/journalism industry to focus on high-quality journalism and refrain from becoming polarized. When you polarize the news you also run the risk of polarizing your audience. 

According to a Gallup poll, (mentioned on the Brookings website) the public trust in journalism had decreased a staggering twenty-three percent from it's highest point in 1999 which was fifty-five percent to it's lowest in 2016 at thirty-two percent.  

 Going back to Darrel West's article, the biggest turn off for many people was their news becoming increasingly polarized at best and biased at worst. So I propose the biggest way to eliminate fake news is to make sure that people do not have to gravitate to fake news to begin with. 

In Darrel West's article, he talks about several methods that the government, the news industry, technology/social media companies can work together to eliminate fake news. One method he mentioned, was encouraging high-quality journalism in order to gain public trust again. 

I would like to take it one step further and also add that the viewers should also not only to listen to one main news source, but instead listen to different news outlets in order to gain a wider picture of the current events that are going on. Darren West mentions this as well in his article, and that listening to a wider range of voices on the news allows for an open-minded view of the world, rather than just listening to one main news source and other like-minded resources. 



The purpose of the assignment is to bring awareness to a growing problem on social media and to help better prepare you for the next time you go looking for information online.


The key question at the heart of the assignment is what are some ways that you can make sure that you don't fall for a fake news story/article?



Comments

  1. Victoria DeJournettOctober 18, 2021 at 8:40 PM

    Your statement had significance when you said "The purpose of the assignment is to bring awareness to a growing problem on social media and to help better prepare you for the next time you go looking for information online." This shows that you understand the assignment at hand and know the significance.

    ReplyDelete

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