San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Fate of truth tellers in China a warning for America
Joshua Wong is in a Chinese prison for having the temerity to speak the truth. For that, Chinese authorities just gave the lithe 24-year-old democracy activist another 10 months on top of the 13 ½ months they sentenced him to in December for standing up for free speech and the freedom of assembly in his hometown of Hong Kong.
Wong made it clear what he and other freedom advocates were up against during an interview last August with my Bush Institute colleagues Lindsay Lloy and Chris Walsh, and me.
While still free, he said: “Misleading information and propaganda by the pro-Beijing camp is part of what we are experiencing. When I was in high school during the Umbrella Movement, the most popular pro-Beijing newspaper accused me of being a CIA agent and that I was trained by the U.S. Marines. Pro-Beijing politicians might not believe that, but they still used this kind of propaganda. When my parents read that, they asked me, ‘If you are trained by the CIA, how come your body size is far different from that of Tom Cruise?’ ”
Ten months after our interview, Wong’s willingness to stand for the truth — that Chinese authorities are squelching basic freedoms — continues to be used against him. Nor is he the only person or institution being targeted. The New York Times recently reported police pamphlets have arrived in Hong Kong newsrooms stating: “Know the Facts:
Rumours and Lies Can Never Be Right.”
The not-so-subtle dig at the Hong Kong media is part of the Chinese authorities’ crackdown on what they perceive as “fake news,” a term that, unfortunately, is ricocheting from our shores around the world.
Let’s be clear here: Calling foul on China’s crackdown on the right to free assembly and the expression of political dissent, as Wong and others, such as Apple Daily publisher Jimmy Lai, were doing when Chinese leaders imprisoned them last year, is not in any way spreading misinformation. Quite the opposite. They were speaking the truth.
“Fake news” has become a term people use to dismiss information that runs counter to their view of the world. Taken to an extreme, the inability to operate from a common set of facts makes it almost impossible for a society to establish trust.
A lack of trust is exactly what authoritarians covet. Manipulation of the truth is the ground game of authoritarians and propagandists. They love a vacuum into which they can pour lies and falsehoods. That makes it harder for opponents to gain standing. And spreading misinformation makes it difficult for citizens to hold authoritarians accountable.
Claims about “fake news” are troubling in a democracy like ours, too. It is very hard to have a stable democracy with a competition over “alternative facts.”
This is why it is crucial for Americans — and, for that matter, people in Hong Kong and elsewhere — to become adept in discerning fact from fiction. At least in the United States, there is some good news here: Media literacy continues to gain ground as a field of study for American students, including some as young as elementary school.
As one example, Alan Miller, founder and CEO of the News Literacy Project, reports 91,638 students have completed one or more lessons from his organization’s “Checkology” course in this school year. By comparison, about 155,000 students had completed at least one lesson in the first four years of the offering of the course. (Checkology uses media experts and journalists to interact online with students as they learn how to determine the reliability of a story or social media post.)
The inclusion of media literacy in our schools makes sense because the strengthening of America’s democracy starts at the classroom door. Historian Jon Meacham recalled at ExcelinEd’s recent EdPalooza conference how Thomas Jefferson believed that “a republic fails without an educated citizenry.” Today, that means possessing the 21st-century skill of media literacy.
Unfortunately, acquiring that skill is not a priority for the Chinese government. Instead, the Times reports, the government is considering laws that will stop the spread of “fake news.”
It’s a safe bet to assume that the authorities would use any new law to stifle the flow of reliable information, the kind that independent journalists factcheck before publishing. A reliable flow of information also is what democracy activists use to hold governments accountable — sometimes at their own peril. Just ask Joshua Wong.