Monday, December 5, 2016

Fake news -- the euphemism


In the field of communication, my profession, we have seen several instances of technology upsetting the apple cart.  In some ways these technological advances were GOOD because they took production out of the hands of specialists and enabled more widespread use.  In other ways they were BAD because the specialists were the ones who previously provided quality control.

So look at the invention of movable type in Europe. Gutenberg figured out how to print cheap multiple copies of books and pamphlets; if you wanted a Bible, now no need to hire an army of monk/scribes to write it out by hand.  All over Europe printers sprang up, ready to produce their own versions of the Bible or devotionals or theological commentaries.  But that meant the church no longer controlled the dissemination of scripture and theology, and the next thing you know, printing enabled the Reformation and Christianity was forever fragmented.

In my lifetime, the personal computer led to the development of what was termed desktop publishing.  Instead of sending your employee newsletter or your advertising flyers or your wedding invitations to the printer for typesetting, you bought a clunky computer, taught yourself or your secretary to use it, and cranked out your own type.  And you SAVED MONEY!  Whatever you produced and pasted down, the printer would print.  Of course, since your secretary didn't know beans about typography or readability or printing quality, many of these works looked like crap.  We saw the proliferation of ugly fonts, unreadable gray-on-black layouts, type set in curves, and other kinky practices that no self-respecting professional typesetter would ever allow clients to commit.

A few years later, the development of digital photography allowed anybody off the street to buy a camera and produce print-ready pictures, no need for expensive film or messy darkroom processing.  And you SAVED MONEY!  So instead of hiring a photographer to shoot your employee retirement banquets or fundraising galas or family Christmas portraits, you handed the camera to your secretary or propped it up on the mantel, hit the delay button and raced to get yourself back in the picture.  As a result, we got blurry photos showing too much background and too little of the subjects, plants growing out of people's heads, guests lined up grimly like watchers at Stalin's May Day parades, boring grip-and-grin shots.  Not to mention sexting and selfies.

Arguably these two latest technological revolutions have not threatened the foundations of civilization.  So what if employee newsletters and wedding invitations have that clunky, crappy do-it-yourself look?  So what if there were typographical errors?  So what if a lot of professional photographers and typesetters were put out of business?

But that leads me to another revolution that is far more disturbing if you care about civilization and democracy: the supplanting of professional journalism by social media and other content-churning internet providers.  If you see a bunch of buses parked near downtown, and you later hear that people were protesting against Trump, you do a fast google search to "discover" that no conferences were being held, so obviously the buses brought the protesters.  Then you whip out your phone and tweet same, and next thing you know, it goes viral and maybe a million people read and pass along a blatant untruth.  (The google search failed to reveal a software conference with 13,000 participants; the hapless tweeter later said "I'm also a very busy businessman and I don't have time to fact-check everything that I put out there.")

"Fake news" is the euphemism being used to describe the lies carelessly or deliberately disseminated through social media and low-end "news" purveyors these days; Obama was born in Kenya or Hillary Clinton led a ring of child molesters.  The quality control provided by professional reporters and editors is disappearing, not just from the free-for-all of Facebook "news" but from formerly good local newspapers who have fired their editors and required their reporters to practice 24/7 you-see-it-you-post-it babble without sufficient investigation.  (And they SAVED MONEY!)

Perhaps in some cases this is GOOD.  The wide availability of cellphone video has exposed lots of police brutality and fueled useful grassroots movements of many kinds.  But on balance I think it's BAD -- terribly BAD -- that a huge proportion of Americans cannot distinguish between facts and lies, that the "news" driving our public policy and voting decisions may have been manufactured by teenagers in Macedonia or manipulated by the Russian government.  And worse yet, a huge proportion of Americans, including some at the very highest levels of our incoming government, seem to believe that facts are irrelevant and lies are OK.

If there is no such thing as truth, there can be no functioning democracy.  As a former journalist and a current and passionate small-D democrat, I am in despair.





16 comments:

  1. The lack of accuracy in publishing, especially spelling, is a direct result of the "electronic revolution." The spelling errors allowed in publications is evidence that professional pride died without notice sometime in the last 20 years. And though virtually married to my computer, I mourn the loss of the ability to place that period directly under the close parens.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kathleen
    I feel your pain as here in the UK we suffering in a similar vain.
    As Artists all we can do is continue to make our art and hope that in the fullness of time sanity will prevail

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ok, in the interests of reporting...not so much fragmentation of Christianity had to do with printing! ;-)
    Although (after some translating into languages of the people who wanted to know what it said) it did mean people could read for themselves and thus discover not all of what they had been told was Biblical actually was.
    But I know what you mean.
    Sandy

    ReplyDelete
  4. Another former journalism major despairing. We were taught that news is factual. Opinions go on the editorial page. Sigh. And now we have a president-elect who circumvents the media by tweeting.

    ReplyDelete
  5. There is no news any more, just opinions of the newscaster or station owner. I personally do not care what their opinion is. All I want is the news and I will form my own opinions!!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. As a former publishing person I feel your regret at the passing of readable text. As a person fortunate enough to have received an excellent education I regret the passing of thinking before speaking. As we gradually remove the elites, perhaps the inevitable result is that democracy = mob rule.

    ReplyDelete
  7. The media (ABC, NBC, CBS The New York Times etc)has made their own bed and now must pay for their laziness. I think part of the reason everyone is so upset about the election results is that they were lied to by people who did not report the facts but gave us their views. Maybe if they learn that lesson the results will be different the next time. We want the facts not their opinions.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Kathleen, I share your despair and I don't know how we might turn things around. A "demand" for a return to higher standards is one that I'm afraid would be largely disregarded.

    ReplyDelete
  9. One of my children just posted something shorter, but very similar to your post on their Facebook page. I completely agree, I think this tendency of way too many of my friends and relations, not to mention the public at large, to believe things they read on social media, is very alarming. I don't know how a return to higher standards might be accomplished, but I make this speech to anyone who I hear seeming to perpetuate bad information. Where did you hear it? How do you know it is true? We all have an obligation to ascertain the truth of what we are about to say before we say it.

    ReplyDelete
  10. There is certainly still room for educating our children about the difference between fact and opinion, and yes, there are still publications that separate the two, ignorant commenters notwithstanding. We can: have conversations with people about the difference; continue to promote fact-based journalism; support same with our subscriptions and donations; exert pressure on entities (FB, Twitter, etc) to continue to monitor and weed out false news. I too feel your despair, but we must carry on and be vigilant.

    ReplyDelete
  11. True. We must remain vigilant, and keep shining our light into the dark corners.

    ReplyDelete
  12. As a kid I used the following sentence to practice my typing skills: Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party. I would submit that now is the time for all good citizens to come to the aid of their country. Yes, remain vigilant, remain informed and accurate, determine how best to respond, and act.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Yes, yes, yes. Everything is cheap.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Great post! Loved the comparisons with the printing and computer revolutions.

    ReplyDelete
  15. There was a time when profession news people reported the facts and we were then
    able to form our own opinions. Now it seems the news people share their opinions as if they were fact. And, entire network stations can be described as conservative or liberal, posting the news in a way that suits their own personal interests. It is disturbing.

    ReplyDelete