News you can believe.
We now live in the era of fake news. Over the past two years, what might have been described as sensationalism or rumourmongering has ratcheted up a few notches to outright disinformation and even become an industry in its own right with teams of people in countries like Macedonia employed to fabricate and circulate stories that are patently untrue. The quick fire spread of so-called fake news, hoaxes and scams is often attributed to the fact that people often share messages without even reading them, let alone evaluating their accuracy. Others simply seek out the sensationalist yarns that support their own distorted beliefs. As various fake news events have shown, the spread of this often outrageously inaccurate content is deliberately engineered using sensationalist headlines and dishonest tactics to either hurt a person or a company or simply to earn masses of revenue. The number of clicks on a fake news story is often the bread and butter of newsmongers who benefit from what is known as internet click revenue or advertising. When it comes to the world of social media, the days of a journalist having to confirm information with more than one source, double check facts and publish “both sides of the story” appear to be over. Back in the day, the commonly-held belief amongst journalists was that, if it didn’t sound true, it probably wasn’t. Nowadays, news filters seem to have all but disappeared. Everyone is a journalist and many newsmongers and bloggers simply make it up as they go. Media gurus are now calling for the public to be educated to evaluate news before sending it on. This means not only looking at its credibility and the credibility of the news site from which it is sourced but also looking for obvious markers – is anyone credible actually quoted? Are any of the sources of this news identified and acknowledged? Perhaps the best test of whether or not the latest outrageous news story is fake or not is whether it is carried by more than one news source and more than one type of media – that means social media, radio and print. The more different news agencies that carry a story, the more likely it is to be true. It is also often best to go to media brands that have legitimacy and have been around for some time – and that often means newspapers. That explains why many television news channels often bring in experts and do a quick whip around of the various stories that make the front pages countrywide. They can then discuss and evaluate what has made the news and place various happenings in context. Many of these stories are also often carried in their own news broadcasts. However, if readers and advertisers do not support our print media, we will lose this invaluable barometer of what is true and what is not, of what is real and what is fake. Newspapers aren’t perfect but they do have the credibility and substance that is missing from many social media sites and digital platforms at this point.