Scoop

The state of foreign reporting today is paradoxical. New technology makes some aspects of foreign reporting faster and easier; it has also raised old problems of trust and the high cost of foreign news that were first seen in the 19th century. This chapter situates today’s new developments in media economics and technology in the context of the 19th-century’s foreign correspondence, which was full of hoaxes and bogus reporting, as well as outstanding correspondents on the ground. Our current moment is a recalibration of three trade-offs in foreign correspondence: managed news vs. independence, speed vs. superficiality, and abundant sources vs. reliability. We examine these trade-offs by looking at modern American and European foreign correspondents, who have long grappled with truth and trust in news.

Canards, Fausses Nouvelles, Paranoid Style

Fake news has been cyclically surfacing in the history of journalism and public opinion. In the vein of some classic authors, the chapter identifies ideas that are surprisingly useful in the present media environment. It interweaves three historical threads relevant to today’s fake news: (1) the growth of canards in 19th-century Paris, observed by both Honoré de Balzac and Gérard de Nerval as the habitual invention of news when facts were not sufficiently attractive for readers; (2) the diffusion of fausses nouvelles during the Great War, described by Marc Bloch and propelled by the tendency, in times of crisis, to search for oracles more than information proper; (3) the propensity, suggested by Richard Hofstadter, to spread conspiracy theories, notably in the development of McCarthyism.

Truth in Journalism

In order to fulfill their role in society, professional journalists must deliver truths. But truth-telling is not the only requirement of the goal of journalism. What is more, some of the other requirements of journalism can make it difficult for journalists to deliver truths and may even force them to depart from truth in certain ways. This chapter makes the requirements of the goal of journalism explicit, and explains how conflicts among them can arise. The chapter then offers some suggestions for balancing these requirements that could help journalists regain the trust of the public.

From Information Availability to Factual Accountability

Theories of democracy in communication studies have emphasized the importance of citizens encountering quality political information and incorporating that information into their views. These emphases on exposure tend to take the truth of the information being consumed for granted. Today, the problem of truth has become more visible, inviting reconsideration of how we expect truth to operate in democratic society. In this chapter, we suggest the need to consider not only the availability of information but also the conditions under which leaders and other communicators are held accountable for the veracity of their claims—a process we call factual accountability. We argue that members of the political elite, news media, and citizens each have roles to play in establishing factual accountability, but trends in each of these realms pose challenges to a truth-driven information order. We conclude with suggestions for reconstructing factual accountability as a basis for public conversation.

Conclusion

The book concludes with a summary of the various perspectives presented throughout the chapters and the trends emerging from the practitioner lessons that each chapter provides for journalists in the age of social media. The chapter considers what is old and what is new with social media and journalism through the three lenses that have guided the book’s contents: politics, truth, and technology. The conclusion finishes with some forward-looking thoughts on how technology may evolve and adapt for people’s needs to be civically and politically engaged online, but not consumed by the ever-growing mountain of causes and outrages that necessarily proliferate given the nature of the technological environment, but perhaps needlessly overwhelm, excite, and enrage to the point of distraction and cognitive overload.

Fake News Finds an Audience

The vulnerabilities shown by media systems and individual users exposed to attacks on truth from fake news and computational propaganda in recent years should be considered in light of the characteristics and concerns surrounding big data, especially the volume and velocity of messages delivered over social media platforms that tax the average user’s capacity to determine their truth value in real time. For reasons explained by the psychology of information processing, a high percentage of fake news that reaches audiences is accepted as true, particularly when distractions and interruptions typify user experiences with technology. As explained in this essay, fake news thrives in environments lacking editorial policing and epistemological vigilance, making the social media milieu ideally suited for spreading false information. In response, we suggest the value of an educational strategy to combat the dilemma that digital disinformation poses to informed citizenship.

Technological Affordances Can Promote Misinformation

The nature of news reporting and data gathering has changed with the advent of social media, equipping journalists with new methods of uncovering news stories and providing the necessary background and context for their readers. Even though a presence online is indispensable for journalists, there are risks from these practices. Affordances of media technologies can influence a journalist´s decision to cover an event, select sources, or engage in conversations, but they also result in cues and residues that can reduce a journalist’s credibility. In this chapter, we use the four classes of technological affordances outlined by the MAIN model (Sundar 2008)—modality, agency, interactivity, and navigability—to examine the various actions and cues in social media that both aid and ensnare journalists. We discuss how interface cues trigger cognitive heuristics (or mental shortcuts) that lure journalists, sometimes to their detriment. We provide recent examples of journalistic misadventure and potential solutions.

Spotlight

This “spotlight” mini-chapter explicates how Pierre Bourdieu conceived of journalism as a struggle for symbolic power. Power is a central organizing feature of journalism and should be analyzed as a field of struggle for truth, or more precisely, for the legitimate right to impose particular viewpoints as newsworthy. The journalistic “field” also competes against other fields, particularly the economic and political fields, for the power to define what is legitimate knowledge for the society as a whole. Within its own field, journalism is bifurcated between two opposing poles: an economic pole (circulation and advertising revenues and audience ratings) and a cultural pole (reasoned commentary, in-depth reporting, the kind of journalism rewarded by the US Pulitzer Prizes); and, according to Bourdieu, it is increasingly dominated by its economic side.

Introduction

The volume’s introduction locates the current digital dimension of “fake news” phenomenon in the nascent days of the Internet and broadly discusses the issues with information online and the often frustrating pursuit of truth in that context. Given the vast topic of truth in journalism, the chapter outlines the selective inquiries the book makes to bridge discussions of digital disruption in journalism. Precipitated by social media technologies, it probes deeper questions about truth and objectivity in journalism. It discusses several key approaches to truth in journalism that may be taken, and then reviews different perspectives on “news”—practitioner’s, democratic, sociological, psychological, economic, and political views. The introduction next previews the volume’s contents, organized under the main themes of “democracy, news, and society,” “pillars of truth in journalism,” the “craft of journalism,” and “reception and perception” of news, and closes with a description of how the volume treats its tripartite prongs of politics, truth, and technology.

Truth at Large

Social media have changed how journalists do journalism. In altering the power dynamics between journalists and their audiences, social media platforms have also affected journalistic practices. For instance, journalists now find themselves having to promote their own work on social media by sharing links or tweeting about their news outputs. They also now engage with audiences through social media platforms by asking for suggestions, contributions, and opinions. Such engagement, to some extent, sees journalists open up the gates, so to speak, to audiences to take part in news construction. But while these changes in news practices are bringing journalists closer to audiences who have migrated to social media, they might be bringing journalism away from its truth-telling function.