From the first days of newspapers in the Colonies through the rise of television and online news sources, the American public has trusted journalists to provide accurate, timely information and help them make decisions. But since its emergence in 2013, Twitter has upended the news world and, along with Facebook and Reddit, become a main source of information for much of the US. A Pew Research poll showed that 55% of adult Americans use social media for news either “often” or “sometimes”. This is an 8% increase from 2018 (Forbes). In addition, both television viewership and print readership have declined as the use of social media for news consumption rises (Pew). The root of journalism’s polarization is the relatively recent emergence of social media. Twitter and other such sites have fundamentally changed journalism, and the effects of that change have altered America’s political climate and democratic process forever.
The change in culture is best represented by the President of the United States. The New York Times analyzed a week’s worth of Trump tweets–139 of them, and they found that 26 contained blatantly false claims, and another 24 were “misleading, lacked context or traded in innuendo”(NYT). These numbers did not even include Trump’s dozens of retweets. This is the President of the United States, the “leader of the free world”, a massive criticizer of so-called “fake news”, repeatedly spreading fake news of his own making. Twitter does not police Trump’s account very closely—only three of these tweets had warnings attached to them—so who is to call him out and convince his base of his falsehoods? How are news outlets to fact-check Trump if many of his supporters will dismiss them as liberal and fake just for contradicting him? The President is not supposed to be a direct news source, and the fact that Trump has made himself one, especially one so incorrect, is very problematic.
Although the President is one of the most public figures that tweets to provide news, the wider problem lies in its accessibility. Recognition might be less than that of celebrities and politicians, but any person can tweet whatever they would like with a serious chance of reaching a large audience, no fact-checking required. This is not just a hypothetical; QAnon is an example of a single unfounded statement taking social media by storm. What is now a wide-ranging conspiracy theory claiming that “the world is run by a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles who are plotting against Mr. Trump while operating a global child sex-trafficking ring” (NYT) began as a single post on a messaging board.
An anonymous account claimed to be “a high-ranking intelligence officer with access to classified information about Mr. Trump’s war against the global cabal” (NYT). Their (fictitious) post ultimately sparked a multi-faceted conspiracy that has spanned the nation, inspiring violent crime and allowing people that publicly endorse it, such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, to run for office with otherwise nonexistent support. For such a falsehood to become so widespread is a direct result of social media platforms and, more specifically, their very concept—engagement equals success. On Twitter, users determine what gets recognition based on if they like, retweet, or comment on a post. The algorithm shows high-engagement posts to a larger audience, and the information spreads. As a result, claims that have a “wow” factor or controversial ideas are much more likely to be retweeted and liked than a mundane but accurate tweet.
The very definition of a journalist has forever changed. No longer does one need to be selected to become published, go through a fact check process, get paid for their work, or have experience. Anyone can be a “reporter” simply by deciding they are one.
Social media has further compromised the security of honest media by exploiting the buffer used to check a story. Until recently, there was a set news cycle. Newspapers had a certain amount of time to get their stories ready for print before they were distributed in the morning, and all the papers were distributed around the same time. Everyone had a deadline. As long as an article was ready by then, there was an even playing field and the popularity of your story was determined by its quality. All this changed with the rise of social media. Social media allows a picture, a video, a tweet to be typed and sent in a matter of seconds—fact-checking nor editing is required. Media companies constantly have to reckon with the fact that comprehensive, researched, and fact-checked articles take time to produce. Time takes money, and when the payoff of such an article is not likely to make up for its production time, news outlets tend to sponsor less of them. It doesn’t help that attention spans are narrowing, with many expecting their news in a 280 character tweet instead of a long-form article. As a direct result, online newspapers, websites, and television all must race social media and each other to be the first to report, and this type of competition leads to corners being cut.
But for traditional news sources being the first to report is a losing battle. Social media will always get to it first. With engagement falling, they need some way to gain public interest. Their solution? Sensationalism, which the Oxford dictionary defines as “(especially in journalism) the use of exciting or shocking stories or language at the expense of accuracy, in order to provoke public interest or excitement.” Sensationalism is simply an effort to keep people clicking to keep making money. Unfortunately, it comes at the expense of accuracy.
Another problem with modern journalism is partisanship. Traditionally, the main goal of journalism was to objectively inform the public. However, as a business model, that has become more and more impractical. Although most major television networks try to stay mostly objective (CNN and MSNBC identify themselves as unbiased and centrist) there are clear political leanings that come into play. With the abundance of facts on the internet, many news outlets have shifted from straight news toward analysis, context, and opinion as a way to set themselves apart from other networks. This makes their political biases more pronounced and causes some to mistrust them. And even if they do present facts, they are interpreted through a partisan prism. Writing for CNN.com, Jon Avion notes, ‘‘Whole news networks are being transformed into little more than on-air advocates for political parties. The idea of objectivity is now increasingly dismissed as a myth rather than honored as an ideal toward which the news industry should strive’’. Because of this political divide, which outlets people read or watch correlate directly to their political leanings.
It is difficult to envisage a time when widely trusted bipartisan news sources existed, or even when people had a level of agreement about the facts. Ted Koppel, a veteran broadcast journalist, fittingly writes ‘‘We are no longer a national audience receiving news from a handful of trusted gatekeepers; we’re now a million or more clusters of consumers, harvesting information from like-minded providers.’’ Although one would imagine that people get news from multiple sources, many only see or read about one side of the story. According to a study from the University of Oregon, there is an explanation for that, known as selective exposure. It is human nature to seek out information that does not fundamentally challenge how we view the world. Furthermore, this phenomenon is impervious to fact-checking once a subject has heard the information. As media sources become more partisan, it gets easier and easier for consumers to get stuck in an echo chamber of like-minded articles. The result is that some voters are making their decision about whom to support based on completely different facts than their opponents. The gap creates people who cannot understand the other side, as their facts leave only one logical conclusion, and polarization follows.
The public, especially today’s younger generation, should be taught not to trust news from social media, as well as ways to identify bias and where to fact-check claims. It should be an essential topic in social studies courses. The issue of journalism today is not an easy one to solve, and it is clear that no matter what, social media is here to stay and will have to be worked around.
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