Fake news does exist, but how some people define fake news is more fake than what they call fake news. It isn’t fake simply because we don’t like it. In a few words, fake news is information that can’t be trusted.
Last week I attended an important program presented by the Berks County Community Foundation, “Consider it: “Do you hear what I hear? Navigating the media maze in the era of fake news.” The five the panelists shared some interesting thoughts about news and the future of media. Most of it was from an academic perspective.
As an insider in the newspaper world, many times the perspective of a journalist is different than that of observers. There’s always the risk of insiders being defensive when their work is evaluated or scrutinized.
Now, as a retired newspaper editor, I have a view from both inside and outside. My opinion hasn’t changed: Newspapers – and the media in general – aren’t perfect, but most of them do a good job of news coverage, and what they do is essential if we are to protect and retain the freedoms and way of life we value in our society.
Fake news isn’t information we disagree with or don’t like. Fake news is what is inaccurate, incomplete, biased and unsupported by facts.
Sometimes the truth hurts. Lies hurt all of the time.
I still believe most community newspapers are credible. So are most national papers, although some of them seem to lean left (mostly) or right with coverage of selected stories. When they allow even a hint of their opinions to creep into their hard news coverage, they risk their credibility.
Social media is where most fake news exists, in my opinion, but there also are established websites that have clear agendas that they push by distorting or omitting facts.
A free press, however, remains one of the most important elements of our society and form of government, whether or not you like what is written. You have the choice to read (or watch) or not on particular subjects. But it’s important that you don’t stop reading at all.
I wrote the following column almost a year ago, several months before I retired as editor of the Reading Eagle. I would write the same things today.
YOU MAY NOT MISS REAL NEWS UNTIL IT’S GONE
JONI MITCHELL sang about it, and many of us have repeated it: “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.”
Sometimes we take important things for granted. We assume they always will be there. It’s true about our jobs, our health and special people in our lives.
It also is true about journalism and the freedoms that journalism protects.
Skeptics will scoff, but there is nothing more essential than freedom of the press when it comes to protecting all of the other freedoms we cherish and enjoy in this great nation.
About a week ago, I heard Ken Paulson, president of the First Amendment Center and former editor-in-chief of USA Today, talk about the importance of journalism. But he was preaching to the choir. The audience was a group of newspaper executives, most of whom already understand the significance of legitimate journalism.
So now I’m preaching to the congregation.
If we lose or weaken our press, the decline of most other freedoms will follow. That will include, in addition to freedom of the press, the other four freedoms guaranteed in the First Amendment – religion, speech, assembly and petitioning the government for a redress of grievances. It will be followed by the right to bear arms as guaranteed in the Second Amendment and all of the other things we are guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the Constitution, which was ratified in 1791.
Because without the press, no one is continually watching our government and holding officials accountable.
I really don’t expect the press will disappear, but it must remain strong for our form of government to survive. A free press doesn’t come without a cost.
“When you refuse to pay for journalism you damage democracy,” Paulson said. “The real thing costs money.”
Supporting the press is as important to freedom in our society as paying taxes is to maintaining our public services. And the press must remain free from government control so it can be objective in monitoring the government.
People criticize the media when they make mistakes, and they do make mistakes. People are outraged when the media show favoritism, and sometimes they do compromise balance and fairness in their reporting. In spite of the media’s faults, it’s still essential to have an independent watchdog of government.
It’s just as important to have the public hold the media accountable. The answer isn’t in restricting the media. It also isn’t in refusing to read or subscribe to a newspaper.
People don’t always like the news that is reported. It still needs to be reported. In a free society, nothing less is acceptable.
“News is what someone wants suppressed,” Katharine Graham, former publisher of The Washington Post, said. “Everything else is advertising. The power is to set the agenda. What we print and what we don’t print matter a lot.”
Thomas Jefferson didn’t like the press, but at least he realized the importance of it when he helped to form our nation.
“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter,” is among the most quoted comments by Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence and was our third president.
“Thomas Jefferson was as irritated with newspaper coverage as any public figure of his era,” Paulson told The Washington Post in an email. “For all the talk of media bias today, it can’t compare to the overt partisanship and personal attacks appearing in papers in our nation’s early years. But Jefferson also knew that our democracy could only flourish with a free press that would keep an eye on people in power and help protect our freedoms.
“He understood that press coverage comes and goes, but freedom of the press must endure.”
Not every news report is objective, but most news organizations do strive for perfection in their objectivity. Sometimes a single word can slant an article.
We constantly review and critique our own work, and we don’t take sloppy reporting and editing lightly. In fact, we have made The Associated Press, our primary national and world news source, aware of examples when news stories seem to slant in one direction or another. Overall, the AP does a very good job. But like all of us, it’s not perfect.
In spite of what a few former subscribers believe, I can’t imagine a more objective report than what we present day after day. That’s not just my opinion; it’s also the opinion of many readers who comment to me. Most of the dozen or so people who have cited our political coverage for canceling their subscription during the past few months are really angry that we also are reporting the side of issues that they disagree with. That’s part of a free society.
You don’t have to like the press or what it writes, but your way of life will never be the same if you lose it.
So be willing to read things that may not be aligned with your viewpoints.
Don’t believe everything you read on the rumor mill that is social media.
Trust in sources that are established and reliable.
Remember that there is no free pass for most things in life, including news. Be willing to make an investment.
Some of us may never know how important a free press is unless we lose it. Then it will be too late.
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