The journalistic profession changed forever just before 3 AM EST on November 9, 2016. That's not professional hyperbole. It’s an attempt to identify a paradigm shift in real time. Let me explain. Upon learning that Donald Trump had won the presidency, I began wondering how the mainstream media, of which I am a part, got the call so wrong. Just one of the last 20 national polls had Trump in the lead, and the final poll margins predicted Hillary Clinton would win by more than 3 points and NBC News analysts opined that Trump would have to pull "an inside straight" to win the electoral college. When my network broadcasting team held a pool to predict the winner and the final vote total, not a single person chose Trump. (The winner ended up being an intern who chose Clinton to win with the slimmest margin of victory.) Plenty has been written since about why the media didn't get it right: perhaps the minority vote was overestimated or maybe Main Street America was underestimated. It could have been the candidates, their strategies, the moment in history or, most likely, a combination of all of it. It has been and will be the subject of a wave of political post-mortems. For our purposes, the only thing that matters was that the press got it wrong. The people that were supposed to have their finger on the pulse of the public, whose job it is to reflect the reality of our times was amazingly, astoundingly off the mark. And not just some members of the media, but nearly all of them. That they got the story wrong at a time when the man that would become president was repeatedly shouting that media was deliberately skewing the news only compounded the problem. Millions believed him, and now millions had what they could argue was proof that the media had been selling a fiction all along. The election cost the mainstream media its credibility.
In this paper, I will attempt to mark out the journalistic landscape as it stands today. The 2016 U.S. presidential election was actually simply a milestone in the changing relationship between the public and the press, beginning years before with the rapid explosion of social media and digital information sharing, and continuing with the phenomena of crowd sourcing and “fake news”. The shifts have wide-ranging consequences for working journalists, aspiring journalists, but also for anyone seeking information online, or trying to make decisions based on the facts as they can find them. Where are we? And where do we go from here?
Today, the platform of digital media and the phenomenon of social media are dominating the information-sharing landscape. No longer is access restricted to traditional gatekeepers. The number of working journalists in the U.S. was close to 60,000 during the mid-90’s, theoretically allowing each of them access to a broad audience, be it on television, in print or on the radio. In 2016, nearly 287 million Americans counted themselves as internet users, theoretically giving each and every one of them access to at least as large an audience as those journalists from 20 years before. They can disseminate information at any time and can reach as many people as the best-funded, most professional news outlets. And they can do it without any restraints whatsoever. How do we navigate an environment in which social media gives nearly everyone access to everyone else, gives anonymous individuals just as big a mouthpiece as entire news organizations, and rewards sensational, hyperbolic, often negative headlines with clicks, followers and cash? To date, there is no app, no technological barrier to reporting or disseminating a lie, whether it be intentionally or unintentionally. Lies mix freely with truths in cyberspace and often, it's tough to tell the difference. Sometimes the only way to tell the difference is to do a little research on your own, something many people are unwilling to do, particularly in an age where information intersects only briefly with our attention span before we are on to something else.
Journalism was meant to take the guesswork out of the job of determining the validity of a piece of information. In generations past, the news was the news. You didn't question it, you simply accepted it as fact and moved on. But what happens when you don't trust the media to distinguish a lie from the truth? Suddenly, anything you can’t validate with firsthand knowledge becomes open to question. While some may believe that to be a victory for the individual, I would argue that reliance on shared facts and sources is a hallmark of democracy. Relying on those who have dedicated their time and effort to faithfully collecting, analyzing and reporting fact is a boon to our society, giving us the opportunity to access information that can aid us, without having to do the work ourselves. At its inception, the internet was supposed to be the tool that would allow global access to facts and knowledge that would make learning and decision-making easier than ever before. Somehow, though, the plethora of information, the blurring of the line between fact and fiction as well as the denigration of experts and others (like journalists), have left us facing a tidal wave of information – each piece nearly indistinguishable from its neighbor in terms of validity, trustworthiness and value. Daniel Moynihan, the late U.S. senator, once said "everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts." That may not be true anymore. Plenty of people are unable to agree on the most basic facts of what's going on in the world. In late December, the Oxford Dictionary added a bit of emphasis on the way this time in our history will be remembered; declaring that “post-truth” would be its 2016 word of the year. The definition is eye-opening. According to Oxford, “post-truth” is defined as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” In addition to consequences for us as individuals, the consequences for society are equally significant. Fewer people listening to opposing viewpoints leads to a more polarized culture and political environment. Truth becomes a commodity bought and sold by the loudest voices, often the ones that are the most shrill and hyperbolic. With no benchmark for measuring various sources, people become comfortable with a messenger, instead of being open to hear dissenting opinions. Now, it may seem as though I have introduced two contradictory ideas. On one hand, I am arguing that we must be open to “experts” even when they tell us something that doesn’t jive with our world view. On the other hand, I am arguing that we must maintain a level of skepticism about messengers and be willing to question what we hear. But these two ideas are not mutually exclusive. In both scenarios, the impetus is on the individual to look to facts, collected by themselves or others, as the benchmark for truth. Napoleon once said that "History is a set of facts agreed upon." For us to maintain a healthy democracy, we must incorporate the views of both Napoleon and Senator Moynihan and find fact that transcends our differences as individuals and instead bridges the gaps in our society.
Into this environment, we throw a new generation of journalists, intent on trying to shed light on difficult and complicated issues that face the country and the world. But how? How do journalists do their job at a time when roughly half the country doesn't trust them? How do you help people distinguish the value and validity of “news” shared on social networking sites as opposed to traditional media sites. How does the public distinguish between citizen journalists who can help spread truth, "yellow journalists" who are dedicated to spreading falsehoods, professional journalists with an agenda to spread and those trying to play it down the middle?
For our purposes, we should separate the types of “journalists” we are discussing. The first group, which I am describing as “citizen journalists” can be considered any one that is distributing information or “news”, typically on social media, with the attempt of spreading knowledge. Because of the ubiquitous nature of I-Phone's, the number of people who can create and distribute news content has skyrocketed. Because that video can be shared instantly on social media sites, it can be more appealing for those users for whom quick, easily accessible content is most important. Unfortunately, that often can lead to images being shared widely, without explanation and without any context. For our purposes, we can ignore individuals who post Facebook rants or retweet political statements as those whose motives are relatively transparent, and therefore present no particular challenge for those trying to determine whether or not they have an agenda or are representing a particular viewpoint. The complexities of navigating “citizen journalism”, particularly online, come when the agendas are more difficult to ascertain, or when they are accorded the cloak of traditional or mainstream media. During the recent rash of shootings of African-American men by police officers, the vast majority of video, both of the incidents and the aftermath, came from individuals. Those citizen journalists, it can be argued, helped in spreading the truth of what occurred, but hindered a full understanding of the situations and the circumstances that led up to them.
That lack of clarity and, as well shall see, ethical standards, can do damage to the value of citizen journalism. Take, for example, the Black Lives Matter movement that drew widespread attention following the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in the summer of 2014. The group, started three years earlier after the Trayvon Martin shooting, lived mostly online up until that moment. After the shooting, it became the platform for a real flesh-and-blood movement. In contrast, to past civil rights movements, the organizers were no longer reliant on traditional media, hoping that journalists were in the right place at the right time to capture developments. Instead the organizers were able to record and distribute the developments themselves. As an article in Wired (1) put it, it demonstrated how, when it came time for the organizers to speak to the masses, they were able to bypass traditional media. "If you want to post a video of a protest or a violent arrest, you put it up on Vine, Instagram or Periscope. If you want to avoid trolls or snooping authorities and you need to coordinate some kind of action, you might chat privately with other activists on GroupMe. If you want to rapidly mobilize a bunch of people you know and you don't want the whole world clued in, you use SMS or WhatsApp. If you want to mobilize a ton of people you might not know and you do want the whole world to talk about it: Twitter ." In addition, journalists relied on citizens inside the protests to post and send video, using it as the core of news coverage for weeks. But there was a downside to it too. Even after traditional media began reporting on the movement itself, it was too late for those same media outlets to put a contextual frame around the original information. Some protesters and movement leaders subsequently allowed their personal agendas to shape the message they were sending. In doing so, they violated what we consider to be journalistic ethics, putting the highest premium on truth, even more than personal aims. But the protesters weren't journalists, nor did they pretend to be. They were messengers. Because of the fact that they maintained an agenda, their information was geared toward soliciting a specific reaction. Adopting the symbolic "Hands Up, Don't Shoot” mantra is a perfect example. It was supposed to be an echo of what Brown said to the police officer just before he was shot. The problem is that it didn’t happen. However, as one protester told the Associated Press, "Even if you don't find that it's true, it's a valid rallying cry. It's just a metaphor." (2) Here we have those that were positioning themselves as the truth-tellers - and the ones that the traditional media became reliant on to deliver a true representation of the anger and frustration in the wake of the Ferguson shooting – falling short of the standard the traditional media representatives should have set for themselves. Ultimately, the media reported the truth of what had happened in Ferguson, debunking the “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” story by reporting on subsequent official inquiries into the incident. In other situations, like the deaths of Eric Garner and Philando Castile, the media used social media images and accounts provided by individuals as a jumping off point to tell broader stories and ultimately hold people accountable for their deaths. In the case of Walter Scott, a black man shot by police in April 2015, the media reported the police version of the shooting which claimed there was a "physical altercation". Not until video of the incident was posted online, showing Scott running away from the officer, did the mainstream media change its reporting and question the official narrative. The patrolman was later charged with murder. When journalistic ethics and standards are used to provide the context that social media typically lacks, the two can reinforce each other and provide a strong case for the truth.
There have been cases, however, when the traditional media’s amplification of social media images and accounts accords it a sense of legitimacy that it doesn’t deserve. During the period of unrest and revolution that tore through more than half a dozen countries in 2011, citizen journalists became the key avenues through which the Western world understood the so-called “Arab Spring” in real time. (3) Utilizing social media, people inside countries like Egypt and Libya were able to bypass their own governments’ attempts at stifling information, often becoming the sole source of information. In retrospect, it is obvious that their intent was to build Western opposition against their governments while simultaneously portraying themselves and their compatriots as martyrs. Yet, because the traditional media had so little access to pictures and information regarding this hugely impactful global story, caveats about the sources of information were often left out. Critical context and framework for the information went missing. The importance is clear. If we know that video of a certain incident is shot and distributed by a participating party, we can weigh what kind of agenda they may have, judge their ethics and their purposes and place appropriate weight on their version of the truth. But if we don't have that information, it's not possible for us, as news consumers, to accurately assess the validity or value of the content.
Is that the fault of the “citizen journalist” or the traditional journalist? Perhaps it isn’t fair to lump them together. While a citizen journalist and traditional journalist are each trying to disseminate information, Robert McChesney and Victor Pickard argue that citizen journalists should be allowed to develop their own "set of values, traditions and objectives". Their argument is that traditional norms confine and restrict the citizen journalist. Instead, he urges them to think outside the box, so to speak, stressing their role as "citizen" rather than "journalist" in a way that works in the service of our democracy. (4) While I agree with his enthusiasm when it comes to inviting citizens to participate in spreading information, I am disturbed by the idea that one who attempts to fill the role of journalist can adhere to objectives other than communicating information and events as accurately as possible. I would argue that in some cases, however, people are communicating information without any thought to "journalistic" integrity or fact-checking at all. Ours is a culture of clicks and likes, in which people often measure the success of their “posts” by the amount of attention it gets, but not necessarily the movement or action it effects. Instead of trafficking in news, many may believe they are simply exchanging information; commenting on their environment and what is happening in the world. But the one who receives that message may not see it the same way. Again, due to a lack of context and oftentimes, the inability to track back to the original source of a tweet or a post, the intent of a message is lost. If it’s a sarcastic joke, a cynical aside or even a person blowing off steam, it may come across to others as a political position or a microcosm of a larger issue that needs to be addressed (and perhaps protested or exposed). But there is most definitely a level of responsibility inherent in being able to broadcast a message to thousands and by extension, even hundreds of thousands of people. It is the same level of responsibility one would expect someone to aspire to if they had the podium in a crowded theater. It is not the time to yell “fire”. But let us not ascribe intent to these people. Social media is still in its relative infancy as a medium and the broad reach and power that it wields is still becoming apparent. It is not hard to see examples on a regular basis of people positing pictures or messages online, only to find out later that the viral nature of their own words and actions can cost them their friends and their livelihoods. Many enjoy the ability to remain anonymous no matter what they post and thereby often avoid any kind of legal or ethical consequence for their information. As people who put information into cyberspace, we must reassess our responsibilities in doing so and as news consumers we must approach all information like this with eyes open. We, as journalists, cannot pretend that the dramatic cultural and technological changes are happening outside of the sphere of what we do. The news is no longer confined to the traditional gatekeepers. The digital media has torn those gates down. Access once enjoyed by media conglomerates is now open to anyone with a twitter handle and online access. What’s more, the number of people getting their news online has skyrocketed as well. According to a Pew Research study , 62% of all American adults get news on a social networking site, with Reddit, Facebook and Twitter taking the top spots. (5) In fact, among those asked where they "often" get their news, digital sources ran a close second to television, 38% to 57%. News websites slightly outpaced social networking sites as the primary source for digital users, but that may be changing. The number of visitors to all nine of the top social networking websites studied by Pew grew from a similar study conducted three years ago.
So what of the so-called traditional journalist? What about the individual once described as an “ink-stained wretch”, toiling over typewriters-turned-laptops, churning out copy and scripts that make up the evening news and the morning paper? There was a time when we could consider anyone who made a living as a journalist as one that participated in, or aligned themselves with, traditional or mainstream media. With the exception of those who lived in the opinion pages, traditional journalists adhered to a common mantra of seeking truth and fact and reporting it. According to the Society of Professional Journalists, journalists should, among other things, be honest, take responsibility for their work, provide context, support the open and civil exchange of views and never deliberately distort facts. (6)
Historically, the press is one of the pillars of American democracy. Known as the “Fourth Estate”, the notion of journalism as the fourth leg of the table stems from Britain in the late 1700’s, but it fit nicely with the nascent American experiment as well, situating a free press alongside the Executive, Judicial and Legislative branches of government. Is that overstating it? Perhaps. But the free press has long been identified as one of the forces that ensures good governance and provides a voice for the people. The founding fathers knew that if governments could suppress news or opinions they didn’t agree with, it would stifle democracy itself. In codifying the freedom of the press in the First Amendment, Thomas Jefferson said “our freedom depends on (it).” Nevertheless, examples of the press and the president going head-to-head are as old as the country itself. Political party newspapers operating as propaganda mouthpieces waged war on behalf of their candidates when Adams and Jefferson were squaring off. (7) Grover Cleveland hated the press; Ulysses Grant felt he was slandered by the media. Even President Obama had a toxic relationship with the press, believing it to focus on the sometimes sensational details of politics as opposed to the big picture. As a Rolling Stone article pointed out in 2014, "The White House suspects that reporters intentionally sensationalize their stories; reporters suspect that the White House plays with the facts to get its message out. Both suspicions are correct." (8) If you go back in history, the media has had its share of credibility problems. In 1948, the media overwhelmingly predicted victory for Thomas Dewey. The famous image of a smiling Harry Truman holding a newspaper predicting his own defeat foreshadowed a contentious relationship with the press throughout his time in office. In more recent times, Dan Rather's deceptive reporting about George W. Bush's flight records cost the veteran anchor his job and cast a cloud over his network. Brian Williams' misrepresentations of his own experiences forced him to step down from his post at the most successful night news program in the country. The wounds were self-inflicted. But it's one thing to hurt your own credibility when you're the only game in town. Yellow journalism, the blatantly sensational reporting that characterized newspapers at the turn of the last century, weren't fatal for the profession since there was no other way for people to get their news. That’s no longer the case.
As we speak, traditional (or mainstream) media is trying to navigate an increasingly complicated, interwoven relationship with digital media and its users. The ability to transmit information and communicate instantly has transformed the profession. And while we’ve explored some of the pitfalls of the medium, there are certainly advantages. Sources can be reached and interviewed over email and information can be gathered from a wide array of easily accessible sources. Crowdsourcing is a perfect example. When the Washington Post's David Farenthold wanted to find out if Donald Trump had really followed through with his promises to donate millions to charities, he realized quickly that he couldn't get what he needed through official channels. Farenthold instead decided to reach out via social media. In October 2016, he said he realized "I could publicly reach out to the big (charities), they would see what I was looking into and so might others. Maybe I would get answers from people I wasn't asking initially. So I then realized that I could do it (use social media) in a broader way..." (9) The benefit for Farenthold was that thousands of people essentially did his digging for him, and he was able to uncover facts about Trump's charitable gifts that he likely would never been able to uncover on his own. To put the resources of an entire community or a society within reach of investigate journalists gives them tools they never had before. The collective knowledge of an entire group of people can be focused into answering a single question. And what if the conversation isn't directed by a journalist? It can still be valuable. In the book, "Participatory Journalism", the authors write that "ordinary people... have provided intimate looks within the smallest of communities, sharing local and even personal information and ideas in depth and detail. They have carried on millions of topical conversations through discussion forums, comment threads and blog posts. In all of these online activities and many more, they have taken on roles and carried out functions that sound quite a bit like, well... journalism." (10) So how can information in such an abundance be a bad thing? I would argue that a tool is only useful in the way that the person who wields it intends it to be. As Time Magazine put it in early February, “Technology has placed a communications revolution in nearly every American palm. When mixed with the economic frustrations of a globalized economy, this power unleashed a new populism. In the history of human beings, it has never been easier to organize groups, for good or ill, or to communicate both truth and lies, to question authority and to undermine the answers that authority gives.” (11)
During the general election campaign of 2016, a phenomenon grew up around fake news. Fake news was a deliberate attempt by groups of people, some motivated by money, others by political ideology to intentionally plant false news stories. The idea was that those stories would be circulated by the public and they would either generate advertising revenue or fuel political animosity or both. A recent Washington Post article describes two creators of intentionally false posts and tweets the "new yellow journalists" and shares interviews in which the men, who went from unemployed restaurant workers to wealthy entrepreneurs, describe how they play on people's fears, religious beliefs and deep-seated anger about political figures to elicit reactions, including getting them to circulate the fake posts to their own followers and friends. As one says, "All successful journalism has shock value". (12) And if you base the metric of success on the sheer number of clicks or likes or retweets you get, then they are definitely successful. You could also base success on how much of a reaction you generate. A man named Gregg Phillips posted tweeted two messages in mid-November, each alleging that three million non-citizens had voted illegally in the general election. Two weeks later, President-Elect Trump himself able to refer to use those tweets as the foundation for his claims that he would have won the popular vote if not for those 3 million illegally cast votes. Media outlets reached out to Phillips to ask him what he was basing his information on. He wouldn't tell anyone. Why not? He said he didn't want the media twisting his words. Trump's tweet was retweeted more than 53,000 times at last count. The fact that Politifact and other media outlets declared it patently false didn't stop the President-Elect from tweeting it and no doubt, won't stop many of his supporters from believing it. Why? Well, is you ask some of the people creating the posts, the audience simply isn't savvy enough to know the difference between a lie and the truth, or at very least, they don't care to try to figure out the difference. Paul Horner, the head of a Facebook fake-news empire, said "People are definitely dumber. They just keep passing stuff around. Nobody fact-checks anything anymore - I mean, that's how Trump got elected. He just said whatever he wanted, and people believed everything, and when the things he said turned out not to be true, people didn't care because they'd already accepted it. It's real scary. I've never seen anything like it." (13) But is that fair? How can people be "dumber" as Horner argues, when there is so much information around? One possible answer is that people simply don't want to take the time to check whether something is true or not. A second possibility is that when people see something they want to believe to be true, they will believe it, facts or no facts. There are certainly psychological aspects to this, and we will go into them later in this paper. But I would argue there is another reason why people might believe these "fake news" publications or anything, really, that purports to report information that has been otherwise repressed somehow. In other words, it leaks out into these "alternative" sites (alternatives to the mainstream media in other words) because the mainstream media has opted not to cover the stories, or to actively silence those reporting them. If the mainstream media was trustworthy, the chain of logic goes; the major television networks would tell you all of this stuff. But they aren't, so they won't. That lack of confidence in the truthfulness of journalists and the media at large is one of the most critical components to the changing environment surrounding the journalistic profession and, quite possibly, poses the biggest challenge.
In September 2016, Gallup asked people whether they trusted the media. Less than a third were willing to say they even had a "fair amount" of trust in the media to "report the news fully, accurately and fairly." In the 44 years that Gallup had been asking the question, the number had never been lower. (14) And why not? Cable news media has become increasingly polarized in recent years, representing the right and left wings ideologies of our political system, often at the expense of more moderate views. Donald Trump made media bashing a central tenet of his campaign, calling debate moderators unfair, and calling journalists "the worst people I've ever met." (15) While I tend to believe that many journalists try to be fair, my own experiences in the newsroom haven't always borne that out. Several years ago, while sitting in the newsroom, a Supreme Court decision was announced that was seen as a victory for cultural liberals and a great roar of applause rose up from the "journalists" sitting around me. I was stunned. How could people who were supposed to be working hard to report the news without bias wear their bias so openly? While I don't believe that such reactions preclude people's ability to report fairly, I have also seen political ideologies more openly expressed inside the newsroom today than ever before. Those ideologies tend to bleed through on air, whether it is through the phrasing of a question or the kind of context and additional information that's provided to the viewer.
Take for example, a series of incidents that occurred shortly after President Trump took office. On the morning of February 15, starting just before 4 am ET, President Trump sent out a series of tweets apparently inspired by questions raised about his links to Russia. Among other things, he slammed “fake news media” for “conspiracy theories and blind hatred”, then blamed the “Russian connection nonsense” on the Clinton campaign and also compared intelligence leaks to the environment in Russia itself. Furthermore, he claimed that major news networks harbored “conspiracy theories and blind hatred” toward him. He offered no evidence for his claims. The source of his frustration – reports that his national security advisor, Mike Flynn, had contacts with a Russian ambassador. Was it warranted? The day before, NBC’s political director Chuck Todd had kicked off his show by framing the alleged Russian links as “arguably the biggest Presidential scandal involving a foreign government since Iran-Contra” and “a class 5 political hurricane.” Hours after the President’s tweets, the NBC News dot-com article read “these seem to be unprecedented stories for a presidential campaign or incoming new administration. But taken together, they have the potential – and we have to stress that word right now – to be something even bigger.” (16) Note the shift away from hyperbole and towards a more measured report. It’s not an isolated incident. Take for example, reporting in late January of the same exchange between Mr. Todd and White House counselor Kellyanne Conway on NBC’s “Meet the Press”. Outlets seen as trending lift described Todd as “dismantling” Conway’s claims, another said that he “obliterated” her. Right-leaning outlets described Todd as a “liberal hack” and said she “rebuked” him. Reports like that may not amount to so-called conspiracy theories, but if the media is going to stave off questions about its neutrality and even-handedness, dialing down that sort of rhetoric, particularly in headlines, is a good place to begin.
What’s worse is that for those who harbor doubts about the mainstream media’s ability to give them the straight story, there are others out there that are more than willing to feed that perception. We saw throughout the presidential campaign, the rise of fake news – not as it attributes to the mainstream media – but the kind that even the actual people trafficking in it would describe as fake news. It’s the kind of insidious misinformation that gets into our twitter feeds or mailboxes and causes us to doubt what common sense tells us may be true and, in some cases, gives rise to whole new thought processes – all inspired by information that can typically be exposed as false. But not always. Howard Rheingold has built a mini-industry around teaching so-called “crap detection” – in other words, how to tell accurate information from inaccurate information, disinformation and misinformation. But is it enough to simply tell people to use common sense? In an article for the Digital Pedagogy Lab, Kris Shaffer argues that while intentional falsehoods may be relatively easy to detect, coordinated digital deception combined with an understanding of how social media distributes news creates a much more formidable foe. He argues that the keys include double-checking the information you share (in other words being more responsible with what you distribute) and adhering as close as possible to the truth without exaggeration (and being prepared to repeat it over and over). He adds that we must stand up for others who may be targeted and against those who spread misinformation while simultaneously working to impress these guidelines on others. (17) Every single one of them is applicable to both the public as well as journalists. Just as we have seen a blurring of the lines when it comes to who has the ability to distribute information, we should expect less of a distinction between the two groups when it comes to the rules that should apply.
A difficulty that we face as journalists comes when the mission of providing context appears to cast you in an ideological battle with your subject. For instance, current cable networks too often appear to have an agenda when it comes to covering Washington politics. A possible solution? Simply allow your subjects to speak for themselves, or report everything in a manner that minimizes anything other than fact as much as possible. The problem with this is that it presupposes that the public has at least a reasonable understanding of what is going on (in other words, context) as to be able to fit the current news in the broader pantheon of current events. In other words, if the President says that he is cutting off all trade with Iran, his comments constitute a fact that can be reported as such. But if the person who hears that doesn’t understand the geopolitical nature of America’s relationship with Iran, the Iranian regime’s reliance on its oil trade with this country, the dire economic circumstances that face the Iranian public, etc., then they may not have enough context to fully understand the story. But then, in providing the context for that (fictional) story, the entity reporting it fails to mention that all of this could lead Iran to take rash action, such as threatening an attack on a U.S. ally, in order to force the President to rethink his decision, would that constitute speculation or a possibility that could be the next stop along a reasonable and logical potential chain of events? It depends who you ask. In this scenario, supporters of the President could declare that it is a creation of those ideologically opposed to him. Supporters could argue the negative – that we simply don’t know what Iran would do and that speculation is useless and even defamatory. But do we do the public a disservice simply by saying we don’t know what would happen? Truth is that people in all positions speculate all the time. People who invest and budget money must do it constantly, trying to figure out a financial outcome based on limited evidence that only extends to the present and not the future. People who have experience and knowledge in certain areas =must= be relied upon to give their opinions on how current events may play out in the future. So therein lies another question. Whose opinions matter? Social media has put everyone’s opinions on an even playing field…. But should it? In this case, truth is not relative. It’s hard to imagine anyone arguing that the local mechanic is just as well-positioned to make a determination about our foreign policy as the person who spent their life assessing Iran’s government, even if the former has more Twitter followers.
Although he was still a candidate when he joined in 2007, Obama was the first President to use social media, joining Twitter in that year and using Facebook to help build a base of millions of voters during his initial run for the White House. In 2007, Scott Goodstein, who help Obama increase his presence on more than dozen social networks said, "These social networks are shopping malls that have millions of people already hanging out in them. So the question becomes, how to find the people that are going to be your advocates and have them talk about your message?" (18) It was a lesson that Obama's successor, Donald Trump, would learn well. Trump himself has said that he uses Twitter to escape the filter of the media. In doing so, he is able to send a message, free of context and in an environment in which he is unable to be questioned about his meaning or intent. The media is left to speculate about what he may or may not mean, allowing him to shape the message later. He is able, essentially, to repeatedly float a trial balloon of his own ideas and “correct” the record as he sees fit. Trump told Business Insider in an interview from January 16, “I thought I'd do less of it, but I'm covered so dishonestly by the press ... I can go bing bing bing and I just keep going and they put it on and as soon as I tweet it out ... I find it very accurate ... they can't do much when you tweet it…” (19) The lack of context and accountability (at least in real time) is one of the primary paradigm shifts in the way this President has chosen to communicate with the American public. Currently, Trump owns one of the 50 most followed Twitter handles in the world. Barack Obama, by comparison, has more than three times the number of followers Trump has (84m to 25m) according to twittercounter.com. But it’s not the size of the megaphone; it’s how you use it. Trump has sent more tweets than all but a handful of people. The impact has been enormous. Behind the doors of newsrooms all over the country, rundowns are altered and leads are changed whenever the President sends out a tweet. Due to the need for the newest angle on any given story, a tweet at 8:30 inevitably changes your lead at 9. In some cases, it can become the lead at 9.
For traditional journalists, all of this simply makes doing their every day job more complicated. The speed of the news cycle and the sheer amount of information available to inform your reporting can overwhelm someone trying to verify the truth of the matter. Nevertheless, as Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan wrote shortly after the inauguration, “Journalists shouldn’t rise to the bait and decide to treat Trump as an enemy. Recalling at all times that their mission is truth-telling and holding public officials accountable, they should dig in, paying far more attention to actions than to sensational tweets or briefing-room lies — while still being willing to call out falsehoods clearly when they happen.” (20)
As Scott Gant put it in his book, "We're All Journalists Now", "the lines distinguishing professional journalists from other people who disseminate information, ideas and opinions to a wide audience have been blurred, perhaps beyond recognition, by forces both inside and outside the media themselves....It is harder than ever to tell who is a journalist." (21) The book was published nearly a decade ago, but the implications are staggering. If the definition is someone that disseminates information, then the pool of journalists in America has become unfathomably large. Gant goes on to question whether those same people shouldn't just be afforded legal protections under the First Amendment guarantees of the Freedom of the Press, but journalistic "privilege" that often prevents journalists from being forced to reveal information they would typically have to reveal if they were ordinary citizens. But what if an I-Phone in your pocket and a Twitter account makes you a disseminator of journalistic information? Where do the rights of a journalist that works at the New York Times end and yours begin? But if those protections should apply to you, what if you looked at the coin from the other side? Should you, as an individual, be held to the same standards as a newspaper or a TV network? I believe the answer should be yes, at least to the extent that someone could reasonably expect the information they’ve disseminated to influence people or events. As the law stands, both a media organization and an individual can be found guilty of defamation if the statement in question is false and it can be proven that someone suffered harm as a result. I don’t believe that people should be given a pass because they are retweeting what someone else says. Just as a TV network or a newspaper can be held responsible for what it publishes (even if it does not originate with them), I believe the same standards should apply to individuals.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, you can avoid the legal implications, either through luck or anonymity. Why should the average person care whether they uphold the standards of a traditional journalist? One reason might be a version of the Golden Rule. If you represent others accurately and fairly and express your best understanding of the world around you, others will do the same. This is particularly important when reinforcing social norms and mores online. The reason why things like body-shaming are frowned upon is not because of a rule or guideline distributed by the World Wide Web. Instead, the online community relies on a measure of self-policing. Some may argue that it's a naive approach to dealing with the glut of misinformation out there, but if spreading false information takes on the same stigma as, say, racial slurs, we could see people start curbing their own behavior.
For those who defy ethical standards because they get paid to do so, the obvious answer is to dry up the pool of revenue, much of which comes from advertising. Facebook is already working to do so. But Facebook is not a journalistic gatekeeper, nor is Twitter or Reddit or Tumblr, or any of the social media sites that have become the platform of choice for disseminators of "fake news". So in the end, the job may fall on journalists themselves to either ignore it or, if it becomes prevalent enough, to push back against it with fact-based journalism. What’s interesting, though, is when the two sides switch places – when social media becomes the trusted media source and the veracity of the traditional media is called into question.
Would the police-involved killings of Philando Castile or Eric Garner ever made the news if someone hadn't filmed the incidents and put them online? It's an extreme example. The media was forced to change its story in the face of obvious evidence contrary to what it had been reporting. But what if the media was the sole gatekeeper? Late in the presidential campaign, video and audio of Trump making inappropriate comments during an NBC taping in 2005 was "leaked" to the Washington Post. NBC raced to put the video out first, but only after it was forced to, to avoid looking like it had sat on the tape. In fact, the network had sat on the tape, trying to figure out how to protect an employee rather than fulfill its ethical obligations and release the tape regardless of the impact on the network's reputation or that of its employee. Unfortunately, that's the case of dealing with the world as we hope it is as opposed to the world as it really is.
Agendas are just as relevant to media outlets as they are to individuals posting pictures or stories online. Of course there are some significant differences. News organizations have a reputation to protect, for example. Any kind of failure to live up to the ethical standards as perceived by the public can hurt its credibility. While we may question whether the ethics are the same across the board and the severity of the media "spin", it is hard to argue that the vast majority of news organizations don't try to put accurate information on the air or in print. Journalistic ethics go back as far as the development of the printing press in the 15th century when editors assured readers that they "printed the impartial truth based on 'matters of fact'". Consider the guidelines of ethical journalism, as explained by the Society of Professional Journalists: Seeking truth and reporting it, minimizing harm, acting independently (without real or perceived conflicts of interest) and being accountable and transparent. By that definition, every single person that distributes "news" or information without revealing their name and their methods is violating journalistic ethics. In the cases of "fake news" that we discussed above, all four tenets are violated repeatedly. Many are faceless; anonymous and in situations where they have conflicts of interest or they aim to maximize as opposed to minimize harm, the anonymity protects them from consequences as well. And while cultural and technological factors will always contribute to who pays attention to what and what form of "news" gains traction, you could also argue that credibility will be the make-or-break factor when it comes to the long-term health of the journalistic profession. The reason is that credibility is a characteristic that real-life journalists can still claim (or reclaim) in a way that gives it an advantage over digital and social media. While we mentioned earlier that few have confidence in the mainstream news organizations, even fewer seem to have confidence in the news coming to them via social media. By not being afraid to take responsibility for their reporting and by being transparent about their methods and findings, mainstream journalists still have an opportunity to reclaim the mantle of credibility.
So where does all of this leave us? For journalists, the rise of social and digital media provides a challenge, while the rise of “fake news” and the relativism that is the hallmark of a “post-truth” society provides an opportunity. I would argue that traditional or mainstream media must take the position that the old journalistic adages are even more important now than ever. Now is not the time to re-evaluate, but the time to retrench. Media organizations that spin the news are hurting the entire brand. Every single professional outfit has a duty to be as transparent about its sources as possible, triple check facts and provide context without betraying opinion. It is easier said than done, and indeed, several organizations have moved away from centrist positions to chase ratings, mined from their extremist audiences. Today, however, the public itself has a bigger stake than ever in being able to discern truth from misinformation. Ethics are no longer a quaint relic of the Woodward and Bernstein days to be thrown over in pursuit of the advertising dollar. With the rise of “fake news” and the President’s penchant for spreading falsehoods, we are now faced with a situation in which a truth-teller is more badly needed than ever. The public must be able to understand what is in legislation being passed, what is at the heart of foreign disputes and White House positions.
In conclusion, I would argue that there are parts of the journalistic landscape of today that are temporary and parts that are permanent. Digital media, for example, is here to stay. Not only has it become an integral part of our culture, but it has also become an integral part of how journalists do what they do. The entire online community acts both as audience and as resource when it comes to obtaining and confirming information. While this may not seem like a groundbreaking statement, the truth is that while many up-and-coming journalists no doubt employ their online skills in their personal lives, there are not enough universities and colleges treating it as anything more than a sidebar. Looking at some of the top journalism programs in the country, I discovered there is woefully little attention being paid to digital literacy and its role in the profession itself. At Emerson College for example, rated the top journalism college in the U.S., there are classes that teach blogging and best web practices, but I find it hard to believe that college students these days don’t know how to blog or maintain an online presence. My sense is that these courses need to be advances to the point where you are taking into account the tools students already know how to use and teach them to integrate those tools into the journalistic medium. In other words, take it to the next level. Exploring the ethical and legal issues we’ve touched on here also needs to be a focus. The key problem, however, is that there seems to be no indication that any of these courses are rethinking journalism itself – in other words, looking at digital media as the new skin that journalism will live in going forward. No longer will social media be, as the University of Texas’ class on Social Media Journalism, be confined to a singular “social media role”. Digital communication and social media can no longer be treated as simply one part of modern journalism. Instead, it impacts all parts. It is transforming the way we think about, create and consume the news. It is a means, not an end – a doorway to obtaining the information needed to do the job accurately, not simply the way to update a blog or send a tweet.
Confronting the public’s skepticism about modern journalistic agendas will be more difficult. Political labels have become so prevalent during recent history that big portions of the public believe that certain media outlets exist to espouse “liberal” or “conservative” talking points. I have already outlined what I believe to be the media’s predilection for hyperbole, but I would argue that’s a bipartisan quality. Instead, all media has a stake in trying to regain credibility in the eyes of the public. My advice would be to treat your audience as a group of people with a stake in understanding the truth – not just seeing your point of view. It takes a certain amount of suspension of disbelief to see the media as being in the journalism game for anything other than readers and ratings, but there are most certainly people engaged every day in an effort to simply get the facts out to the public. To journalists everywhere I say, use your skills and your mouthpiece to provide more information not less. Offer hyperlinks to other reports, government data and even opposing viewpoints. Reject the false dichotomy or a binary choice between one media outlet as being right and another as being wrong. Reject the idea that people only want part of the story, specifically the part that they already agree with. Offer them a plethora of information and let them choose their own path to gain the context and insight they deem necessary. As I said before, this means that the media must break out of its comfort zone of offering only the most extreme viewpoints and at least provide access to some of the same sources a professional journalist might use: government data, experts, etc. Point them in the direction of the information and let your audience find their way from there. To get to that point, however, the media needs to do more than change its style of programming. It needs to change the way it views the public itself. News consumers must be accorded the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the question of whether they want to know more, not less. The audience, as they say, is listening. In Pew’s 2016 report on the state of the news media, the majority of news outlets had increased their traffic from the year before and that almost three-quarters of “digital native” sites (sites that were born on the web) saw their traffic increase as well, with nearly half jumping at least 10%. Modern technology has largely wiped out the barrier of access. The public’s appetite for a different kind of news coverage is obvious, and, to me, there is no more important time than now for journalists to reclaim the factual high ground. My hope is that the necessity of these actions will become more apparent if there is a continuing (or resurgent) attempt to spread fake news and/or denigrate those who are working to provide an unbiased view of the world around us. In that case, all journalists have a stake in trying to draw as bright a line between themselves and those that would purposely misinform people. The public has a role in all of this as well, of course. Use your crap detectors, your common sense, to sniff out the stories that seem too good to be true (or too bad to be true for that matter). Be on guard for agendas when it comes to those who provide the news, and be particularly wary of those who hide behind anonymity. Seek out opposing viewpoints, even if they initially make you angry. They have a tendency to soften your heart. When the election happened and I recognized the shift that occurred when it came to the credibility of the mainstream or traditional media, I was discouraged and predicted that more people away. Instead, I believe it has presented an opportunity. At a time when there is great confusion about truthfulness and much at stake for those who would have their viewpoint (and only their viewpoint) promoted, there are those who will increasingly seek an unbiased truth. I encourage those who are frustrated with the state of modern journalism, with the idea of a “post-truth society” and relativism, to stand their ground. I predict that a backlash is already coming; that the chance for hard-working, fair, unbiased journalists to retake their position as the fourth leg of this democratic stool is being hastened by those who would seek to undermine all those who disagree with them. Now is the time to prepare, to change our ways and to be ready.