Ensuring Credibility and Trust: An Era of Fake News
What is fake news? Why is it an issue? What threat is it posing to the trustworthiness and credibility of modern news, and can we change this?
You may have seen or heard it from President Trump, you might have crossed it’s path when researching political debates. However you’ve come across the term, fake news is a serious issue in modern journalism.
What is Fake News?
Defined as the deliberate misinformation or hoaxes spread by traditional news media or social media, fake news has increased thanks to the rise of digital journalism.
“Before the internet, it was much more expensive to distribute information, building up trust took years, and there were much simpler definitions of what constituted news and media, making regulation or self-regulation easier.” James Carson, The Telegraph
Social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have also allowed for a faster and greater exchange of information.
“The barriers to creating fake news have been undone.” James Carson, The Telegraph
Who Creates Fake News?
Carson further goes on to note that fake news can come from a variety of sources. These include, but are not limited to:
- Commercially-driven sensational content: stories with no grounding in fact that are produced solely to drive web traffic.
- Nation state-sponsored misinformation: often political content designed to influence or sway public opinion.
- Highly-partisan news sites: combine fact and opinion, support a single political viewpoint and present themselves as ‘alternatives to mainstream media’.
- Social media: doctored photos, false information and viral videos spread within social media sites — internally created and shared rather than externally sourced.
- Satire or parody: light-hearted publications in which the humorous message is misconstrued as fact.
From this, it is clear to see that fake news was not firstly created to suit one particular agenda.
Also now, due to the shift to digital news, many editors may feel the need to resort to clickbait style fake news in order to actually have a chance at generating advertising revenue.
It could though, in some cases, be a simple fact checking mistake, though the issue lies within the fact that this simple mistake can have huge repercussions should the report be taken as the truth.
Take a look at this video that explains some previous examples of fake news, and why a lie can travel so much further than the truth and in so little time.
Are People Trusting of the News?
The simple answer? No.
It seems that in this day and age, people’s trust in the news, and the perception of the news as credible is declining, allowing misinformation to be far more easily spread.
There is a lot to be done by journalists in order to reverse this opinion for good.
“The 2017 survey for the Reuters Institute’s Digital News Project showed that trust in media in the UK had fallen 7% in a year.” London School of Economics and Political Science
The question remains though — what does trust mean?
“What do audiences mean when they are referring to trust in media? Are they looking for unbiased, factually accurate information? Or do they rather trust information that mirrors their own values, views and lifeworlds?” London School of Economics and Political Science
In this example, could it mean trust in news organisations is diminishing purely because news outlets are reporting events or statistics that aren’t in line with people’s personal beliefs?
If this is the case, it’s going to be even harder to appeal to individual readers in terms of credibility.
However, the Code of Ethics established by the Society of Professional Journalists states the following:
“Ethical journalism should be accurate and fair. Journalists should be honest and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information… Take responsibility for the accuracy of their work. Verify information before releasing it. Use original sources whenever possible.”
If working by this practice, no matter who the news organisation is trying to attract, journalists should always report factually and as accurately as possible.
So, how can journalists ensure credibility and trust in an era of fake news?
The solution listed by many is that of transparency.
One of the most important ways journalists and news organizations earn the trust of the public trust is by being transparent about who we are and the work we do. American Press Institute
Transparency can be defined in many ways in the journalistic sphere, however common definitions list three subsection as according to Andrew Schnackenberg and Edward Tomlinson:
- Disclosure (information is released in a timely manner)
- Accuracy (information is correct)
- Clarity (information is understandable in context by the intended audience).
Many believe that transparency should contain some explanation about the reasoning and decision making behind a story — why a particular quote or source was used or left out, for example.
Journalists must take greater care to link to original materials and ensure their sources are accurate, as well as allowing audiences to have an active role in the news gathering process and be open to correction or editing upon being made aware of changes.
Transparency is key in helping journalism become credible once again. Accuracy and a true representation of public opinion is sure to make the public happy and lead to faith being restored in this profession once more.
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