No good solutions: 4 ways to deal with bad faith news media
The on-ramp to becoming a journalist is not steep. There is no test to pass, no certification or degree to earn that definitively bars your way.
Just “hang out your shingle,” and you’re a journalist. This is both invigorating and horrifying.
Honestly, write a story about something happening in your town and boom, you’re a journalist. That’s it.
Like the classical story of the Sword of Damocles—where a sword suspended above the throne of a king symbolizes the danger for those who hold power—journalism has its own problem with power.
On one side is the big “traditional” journalism organization. They were the gatekeepers for decades as they separated the audience from the noise and delivered their pronouncements as truth rolled up in newsprint.
On the other is the upstart, the pretender, the hopeful. We—and I include myself on this side of things—may seek to reach the public on stories that the big, lumbering institutional news organizations can’t or won’t.
Within each of these are serious problems for our audience. Which news organizations are worth listening to? Which are fraught with misinformation or disinformation?
As a journalism educator, I do my best to teach my students about how to figure out if a news source is a good source or not. But not every American, or person across the world visiting a news site or watching a video on social media, has those tools… and more importantly, the inclination to use them.
A Stanford University study found American high school students were ill-equipped to “judge the credibility of information on the internet.” 96% were unable to “failed to consider that ties to the fossil fuel industry might affect the credibility of a website about climate change.”
And this is definitely not a pandemic era problem. In 2016, Buzzfeed News dug deeper into the economics of disinformation. “BuzzFeed News’ research also found that the most successful stories from these sites were nearly all false or misleading.” The Macedonian teens who ran the websites told Buzzfeed they could earn, “$5,000 per month, “or even $3,000 per day” when he gets a hit on Facebook.”
And many US adults can’t separate opinion from news, and some news organizations don’t clearly label opinion. Take for example, the prime time “news” slate from Fox News. He hits the airways(and cable) at 8 pm Eastern each night, to offer his opinion on the day’s news. However, it is very rare indeed to see his network label his work as opinion. Thus many viewers take what he says as the “news.”
So what are we to do when lies, misinformation, and propaganda fly around the globe faster than the truth?
- Education. This is an obvious one, but more and better education to spot misinformation and propaganda. However, this is a generational solution. The students I have in class and those in the elementary school have years if not decades until they may vote or have their brains develop enough to make consistently good decisions (generally teen brains aren’t done developing until about age 25) Education aimed at the adult population is unlikely to hit those most in need of this form of tutelage. The proliferation of anti-vaccine and anti-mask groups is evidence enough of this. Educating a conspiracy monger is like deprogramming someone from a cult. It’s difficult and takes time and resources.
- Stewardship on the part of social media. If traditional news outlets are no longer the gatekeepers, then the social media giants will have to act in this capacity. They each already do it to some level through their terms of service as most ban things like harassment, racism, and pornography. So it is a short step—though not an easy one legally, morally, or technologically—to act as a gatekeeper and protect its users from propaganda and disinformation. This is a patchwork solution as the controls will be instituted through the filter of legislation in nearly 200 countries, the threat of legal action, and the numerous existing and future social media networks may simply render most gatekeeping via this method useless. Imagine Twitter or TikTok suddenly clamps down on disinformation. It is likely that some upstart social media, perhaps headquartered in a country with no laws regulating social media or technology companies, they could grab the attention (and the clicks and dollars) of a user base who has fled those restrictions. Sometimes when we say, “the market will decide” we may end up with a race to the lowest common denominator.
- Treat it as cyberwarfare. This is an extreme solution to be sure. Let’s look at how this might work in the United States. The President would sign an executive order saying foreign websites are bombarding US citizens with propaganda, misinformation, and disinformation. And to direct US Cyber Command to identify threats, deliver plans to neutralize them, and when so ordered attack such sites. This is treating these websites—and their owners whether they are governments or private individuals—as akin to terrorists. They’re blowing up our democracy with code rather than bombs. This would be a major shift likely necessitating Congress getting involved, and it would also be very expensive.
- The Fairness Doctrine. This FCC rule required “the holders of broadcast licenses both to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was honest, equitable, and balanced.” Why wouldn’t this work today? The key phrase is “broadcast licenses.” This regulation didn’t cover cable networks. If such a regulation were to be revamped, it would have to cover cable, streaming platforms, and perhaps even social media to have a chance of doing what advocates hope. So let’s say a new Fairness Doctrine is put in place—over the vociferous objections of FOX News, Newsmax, OANN, and others—what would it accomplish? Well, it would cover US networks and platforms, but this might simply push some overseas. Or like the various laws around media would require the platforms themselves police the content or face legal issues. This is why some content from YouTube and meme sharing sites like Imgur and Reddit is unavailable in Europe. It’s safer for these companies to police themselves harshly and self-censor their users than face the wrath of the law. I’m not certain this would work in the US. The lobbying such a reborn Fairness Doctrine would face would be immense. If it were to only cover cable news, some networks would skirt the law and launch their own streaming platforms(if they haven’t already). And what would the enforcement mechanism look like? What penalties would be imposed?
So what do I think will happen? Like many other problems facing Americans—climate change, the pandemic, housing costs, systemic racism, among others—we will make small steps, but little to deal with it seriously and reaching every single individual.
In ten years time, we’ll be where we are… but only worse.
