Short Story tactics: How to deal with the specificty of titles

Trusted media is fighting back against fake news, writes Irish Independent news editor Gareth Morgan

THANK you, Donald Trump, for your services to journalism.

As the 45th President of the United States prepared to leave office in January, those were words I scarcely thought I’d write. But in popularising the phrase ‘fake news’ the Donald helped teach the world that not all content is created equal. Yes, he intended to use the term as a weapon against the media but it has become a double-edged sword.

Beforehand it was a cumbersome process to explain to people about sources, verification, and reliability. Many readers worldwide did not care. They wanted the snappy headline or the startling image. In the dark days the story could have been shared a million times on social media before the crucial question was asked: ‘is this actually real?’

The world was naïve to the power of the internet. While the internet has helped the spread of information like no other medium, it also let disinformation (or as we now know it, fake news) take root like a disease. Trump of all people knows the power of words. No other politician has used short, sharp tweets to such powerful effect. There was little room for nuance or context in those 280-character grenades.

Enter the ‘mainstream media’ – so often painted as bad guys. The car-crashes of American politics and Brexit showed readers what happens when falsehoods are allowed to flourish. What happens when people take Twitter feeds as gospel or Facebook posts as fact. Over time, more readers remembered that there was merit in sources, verification and reliability.

Where once there was a hunger for free and easy ‘click bait’ there has been a resurgence in quality journalism as exemplified by the Irish Independent’s Premium content. The model is based on the simple premise that readers will support quality, agenda-setting journalism and will pay to read it.

In return the journalists whose wages depend on the success of the model must be motivated to seek the truth and write with accuracy.

There are still plenty of outlets which thrive off of clickbait. If there are reports of a shooting in Dublin, it is easy to write a quick news story saying ‘reports of a shooting’ without any kind of checks or verification. Get it up online and watch the clicks mount.

But who was shot, where, when? Why might they have been targeted? Was there really a shooting at all or did gardai merely receive reports which turned out to be a hoax? These are all basic questions that journalists and editors at the Irish Independent ask, and which others should ask, and seek to deliver to their readers.

Likewise, the modern journalist must ask whether a story is a story at all. Who stands to gain, and who stands to lose? Perhaps more importantly – who might be paying for this? In a world of press releases and PR, money talks, but it should not be allowed to shoot its mouth off without checks and balances.

Fake news can be manufactured to influence people, or to alter their mindset. However, it can also be the ruinous product of laziness or the simple seeking of attention, as opposed to seeking out information.

There are many truths out there, but a journalist who strives to uncover the unpopular, the unpalatable and the unpleasant truths will have more integrity than those who thrive off clicks alone.

“In a world of press releases and PR, money talks, but it should not be allowed to shoot its mouth off without checks and balances. ”