Since the beginning of time, information has traveled fast from person to person. Unfortunately, along with this comes the spread of false and often inaccurate information. This leads the people of our world to believe lies about their government, their nations, and even their own neighbor.
The information we receive on a day to day basis is not always the correct information. This has become even more evident through the recent election of this year. On both sides of the election, there was report after report of the #fakenews being spread worldwide on a variety of media platforms. From Donald Trump being endorsed by the Pope to Hillary Clinton running a child sex ring in a pizza shop, the lies being fed to us by news sites rose from being read by 3 million people in February of 2016 to 8.7 million people in August of 2016.
Besides dealing with the fatal implications of false information during the election, there was also a big rise in media bias. In a study done by the Harvard Kennedy school, it was found that the media coverage focused more on Trump than any other candidate running. By giving all of their attention to the Trump campaign, Journalists unknowingly gave Trump the exposure he needed to stay relevant in his campaign. A biased media encourages ignorant and uneducated decisions. It manipulates people into choosing an idea or action, that they otherwise may have never wanted to choose before.
“If we can’t discriminate between serious arguments and propaganda, then we have problems.” said former president Barack Obama in a past news conference. Quite frankly, Obama is right. It has recently become apparent that we can no longer tell fact from fiction. We the people need to begin to take a closer look at what we are reading and where we are reading it from. The truth can only come from the people who care enough to find it, and the future of our nation must find the truth within the lies we are constantly being told by the fake media.
There are several ways to determine if a news story is legitimate. First and foremost, look at the URL and domain. Questionable sites will usually end in a .co or .com. Along with that, pay attention to the quotes used in the story. If a story barely uses quotes or you are unable to fact check the quote given with a google search, you may be looking at a piece of #fakenews. Finally, find out who write it by looking for a byline. Usually, if it was written by an unreliable news source, it won’t have a byline given or information on the writer.
We need to start paying more attention to what is being said around us. It isn’t enough to just dismiss the inaccurate information, we need to take a stand and speak up about what is being written. We need to work together to eradicate false news stories and save ourselves from falling into the trap of uneducated decisions in both politics and in life.