Opinion: ‘Fake news’ can’t be fixed by more journalism, not when our democracy is broken – By Marc Ambinder (MSNBC) / December 26, 2021
A “more media” strategy will inevitably lead to more “anti-media” attacks.
How do you solve a problem like fake news? According to a survey of journalists by Greentarget, a counter-misinformation consultancy, journalists, who are on the front lines of the war against bad information in all its forms, have an unsurprising answer: more journalism! That’s been my answer, too, on this very website. Unfortunately, since I wrote that piece in November 2020, it’s become clearer that using more journalism to fight false facts is a fantasy.
That’s because fake news is not so much a problem as it is the symptom of a problem. It is an inevitable consequence of how we talk to each other, why we talk to each other, what information we need from each other and how we feel about each other relative to what we believe. Journalists think of it as a symptom of too few journalists, but consider: More and better news sources will not make younger Democrats more likely to break bread with younger Republicans, or vice versa.
Fake news is not so much a problem as it is the symptom of a problem.
The Greentarget survey found that while 84 percent of journalists think the term “fake news” is contributing to the delegitimization of journalism, only 14 percent think their own work has been significantly altered because of it. Ninety-three percent said fake news harms journalism; 6 percent said they think Big Tech’s monitoring of social media has had a “significant impact,” and more than 90 percent dismissed media literacy efforts as insignificant — meaning they don’t change the way people consume news
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