A December 2019 survey among 233 traditional and digital news publishers from 32 countries revealed that lies, half-truths and fake news from politicians will continue to be a main challenge for journalists in the coming decade.
Digital News Project 2020, a report published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University, said 85 percent of respondents agreed media should do more to fact check politicians because more and more politicians will employ misinformation and disinformation tactics in the future.
The publishers were concerned, however, whether such ramped-up efforts would curb the trend.
Many countries have seen how politicians and their supporters exploited their citizens’ use of social media to achieve their own ends. Targeted articles, for example, go straight to the news feeds of a user, who has been profiled and deemed receptive to such messaging.
Another example is the use of trolls, where paid social media users use various tactics to confuse, mislead, shame and threaten others who do not share their point of view.
In the past, media organizations have acted as gatekeeper, sifting through the noise and ensuring that what reached their readers and viewers were worthy of their attention and response. That the news items were the truth was a given.
These days, however, the gatekeeping function has been challenged by the blurring of lines between the source of the news and the recipient of the news.
Tragically, truth often becomes a casualty as politicians’ objectives come first – and are able to reach their audience directly. They boost their own stock, bring down their opponent, or simply create an environment of uncertainty and confusion, half-truths, outright lies and fake news.
Meanwhile, the general public may not be aware that the “information” they are seeing on their feeds has been curated for their consumption. Afterward, it is so easy to click “share” or “retweet,” making the process endless.
Worse, even if the news item is later on fact-checked and proven wrong, the impact of such a discovery is not likely to be as strong as the initial effect of the erroneous – or malicious – information. The damage has been done, and sadly, politicians are smug and secure in the knowledge that their audience could be quite forgiving even after knowing they’ve been fed half-lies.
In the end, the ultimate responsibility lies on the end-users, the consumers of information. No amount of fact-checking could curb the zeal of those who are bent to rewrite the telling of events, massage the data, and deny or invent actual occurrences.
They will continue in their shameless disregard of the truth – especially when people let them, take everything at face value, accept all “information” with nary a critical mind.