Fake News in the News

Fake news seems to be the hysteria du jour.  I don’t propose to get involved in debates about particular news sources—whether print, broadcast, or internet based—just now.  But this matter of fake news is serious, and we really need to step back from hysteria and give it serious consideration.  I’ll start.

     The first thing to keep in mind is that there is a difference between inaccurate news reports and fake news, just as there is a difference between making a mistake and telling a lie.  Reporting the news is a human endeavor, and human beings—even the best and most conscientious of us—make mistakes.  Whether an individual journalist or an organization of some sort is to be taken seriously as a source of information is not simply a matter of whether they always “get it right.”  If this were the standard, there would be no credible sources of information.  You would not even be one for yourself; sometimes your senses deceive you and sometimes your reason misleads you.

     A more useful standard would be some notion of whether or not a journalist or institution is genuinely trying to “get it right” (i.e., get at what the facts truly are) and whether or not they have the resources to actually accomplish this.  But this means that if you expect to get it right, you will have to get your news and information from multiple sources, with multiple perspectives.  Which points to another concern.

     There is always much complaining about bias in the media.  Typically, all this really means is that the news is being presented from a perspective that is different from that of the complainant.  But how could it be otherwise?  Everyone has a perspective.  And while the citizens of a single nation might have much in common, they also differ amongst themselves in all sorts of important ways.  The idea of news from all perspectives, or no perspective, is incoherent.

     This is why demands that the media just report “the facts” and leave their opinions out of it are misdirected.  There are, at any given moment, a virtual infinity of “facts” that one might report.  But one’s understanding of what these facts are, which ones are important, and what they mean, is shaped by one’s perspective.  One perceives “the facts” through the lens of one’s values, one’s experiences, one’s understanding of how the world works, and so forth.  What we should demand of journalists is that they be very transparent about what their perspective is.

     A more useful concept of bias might indict those who ignore or refuse to engage perspectives other than their own, or who misrepresent them, or who claim privilege for their perspective.  And if you expect to escape the charge of bias, you too must avoid these vices.

     One thing all this means is that “getting it right” is difficult.  Getting a clear picture of the facts of any matter and thinking clearly about them is a lot of work.  Maybe in a future post I will say something about how I approach this task.  Meanwhile, here is something from the US Military that should convince you that it really is important to do the work to figure out what the hell is going on.

Don't Be a Sucker, US Military