Today, the common citizen will be exposed to a countless number of ads, news articles, and videos, as well as pointless publicity, “glamor” news that is for some reason one of the most favored forms of information today. All of these forms of media are now easier to access than ever before. Specifically, with the help of new technologies such as smartphones and computers, consumers of media are nearly overloaded with information, most of the time it being skewed or completely off course of the truth. Because surfing the web is now so accessible, people are always finding seemingly truthful facts but in actuality it is misleading. Due to this increase of misleading information, it is becoming harder and harder to determine which sources are truly legitimate. It is especially hard because the majority of popular news outlets, such as Fox and CNN, are reported to be biased and do not report the whole truth to a story. For instance, we can look at the recent events of the pandemic. Specifically, Fox seemed to always fight against Dr. Fauchi and his recommendations for mitigating this disease, and now they are receiving repercussions. The Washington Post and the New York Times have numerous articles exposing their misinforming actions. Specifically “Fox News has succeeded – in misinforming millions of Americans” by the Washington Post and New York Times article “Fox’s Fake New Contagion” are excellent examples of the corrupt nature of Fox. 

“You can relax, Sean Hannity, I’m not going to sue you. Some people are suggesting that there might be grounds for legal action against the cable network that you pretty much rule — Fox News — because you and your colleagues dished out dangerous misinformation about the virus in the early days of the crisis in the United States. Some might allege that they have lost loved ones because of what was broadcast by your news organization.” (NYT Kara Swisher, 3.31.20)

Thankfully, there are credible news sources out there that do not have an agenda, other than getting the truth to its readers. Unfortunately, these sources are seeming to become more and more rare. Is this because there is just so much bull shit out there that there seems to be so little truth? Or is the full truth actually being kept from us? 

Other instances of misleading information are not as maniacal as some others but readers still need to be cautious of these sources. Even though they are spreading only a little bit of misinformation, it can create a domino effect of misinformation in the population, which leads to distraction from serious events. For instance, in the case of National Geographic’s video of a starving polar bear on melting ice was a widely debated piece of data. People started to argue about the age of the bear and if it had a disease or not. This was such a small amount of misinformation, but it escalated quickly into a large problem. It distracted viewers from the moral of the video. Climate change is having a serious effect on not only us but the other inhabitants of the world as well. But because of the unclear state of the bear, people missed this message. Other sources of misinformation are even harder to detect and seem to have a greater influence on our thinking.   

The peculiarly fast rise of social media and “glamor” news concerns me. These particular new media have had a horrifying effect on the interactions between humans with one another, and humans with absolute fact. Platforms such as Facebook and Instagram are at the top of the list for social media and are part of billions of people’s lives. With such a large influence in the world, a large number of people will start drawing their facts from these areas and the fact of the matter is, not all of the information on these platforms are factual. Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook recently, in 2018 was prosecuted for whether or not Facebook “intentionally censors conservative content and how much Russians may have meddled with America’s democratic process through the social network.” (NYT Zach Witcher, 4.12.18) Is it not concerning to the rest of the world that this occurred at one of the most used websites of all time? 

This indicates that we need to get out of the conglomerate mindset, stop thinking that big companies are always doing the right thing. We need to put our trust back into more local sources or at the least smaller news media such as podcasts. For example, the Joe Rogan podcast is a great place to listen to honest occurrences of events. He does an excellent job of fact-checking his guests while on-air, as well as being careful not to say something is true if he is not 100% sure himself. With more platforms like this people will be provoked to do their own fact-checking and being more careful with their own worlds as well. 

To put this to a test I interviewed a few of my friends who live here in Boulder, as well as my 75-year-old grandparents who live in Texas. I asked them questions along the lines of, what news, social media platforms, or people they listen to for their daily information? What do you do when you see something that counters your belief system on the new? Does the news source matter? Do you believe in global warming? Questions aimed to reveal how well versed they are in finding or even believing the truth. My friends here in Boulder all have rather similar answers. They don’t listen to any news station or read any major newspaper. For most of their news, they either get it through social media or podcasts. My friends who are very skeptical of fake news and misinformation always seem to do their own research and by doing so believe in actual truth. On the other side, with my grandparents, my grandfather is a classic boomer. He reads the newspaper and tries to only listen to FOX, CNN, and MSNBC. Also, he does not believe in global warming, possibly as a result of his news sources or just his age and religion. My grandmother seems to be more progressive and tries to pull information from all sources and has even started her own social media. From the information gained front these interviews it seems that there is a large generational gap in the issue of media. The older generations seem to be receiving more misinformation than the younger generations, and as stubborn as they are, are usually reluctant to change their way of thinking. Fortunately, there are those who are trying to keep up with the times and exploring more of the new technologies. 

We need more of the population understanding that a large amount of the “news” they hear is either censored or has mis and disinformation throughout. The population as a whole need to move into a new age of technology, that of better understanding and wiser user. If we do this, humans as a whole will become better informed of the issues that are actually occurring and be able to make educated decisions on how to fix the situation. If we are able to limit the amount of distraction we receive from new technologies such as social media and useless publications, global warming and other issues that seem to have no solution will be dealt with properly and efficiently. We need to move into the age of technological geniuses.

Sources

Swisher, Kara. “Fox’s Fake News Contagion.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 31 Mar. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/03/31/opinion/coronavirus-fox-news.html.

Wichter, Zach. “2 Days, 10 Hours, 600 Questions: What Happened When Mark Zuckerberg Went to Washington.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 12 Apr. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/04/12/technology/mark-zuckerberg-testimony.html.