In the wake of 2016, we have seen a considerable increase in the reporting of stories that could be described as “fake news”. This event has seemingly been more and more prevalent as time has gone on, and journalists and news outlets are constantly left with trying to figure out a way on how to combat it on a daily basis. Often times it is the journalism outlets themselves that end up creating these fake news stories, thus creating an uproar of events where the story is shared repeatedly on social media, reaching thousands of readers. Though, what these people are reading is not the truth, it is all false. The case study I chose to analyze for this blog was an event that happened in mid-January of 2017, it was the Betsy DeVos story involving her comments made about guns in schools and fighting grizzly bears. In this case there were multiple ethical issues that can be examined here. The issues that were brought up were takes of fabrication, and reporting false facts. This case comes off the rails of a very long and hard election season where Donald Trump criticized the media more than once. The election cycle this past year was also rampant with multiple other stories that could be categorized as fake news.
Fake news has always been around and as time has gone on with increased ways to post stories online, it has only become harder to combat. Though, in the case of Betsy DeVos’ comments, the mistakes made were not just that of fake news, but also of fabrication. Some outlets such as CNN and Slate, completely took her comments and spun them into a story with a completely different connotation. Betsy DeVos was appointed as Donald Trump’s choice for Secretary of Education, and during her confirmation hearing answered questions about guns in schools. Her direct quote on the question was that it was “Best left to locales and states to decide.” DeVos went on to explain about a school in Wyoming that had a fence around it to protect it from unwanted wildlife in the area. “I would imagine, that there’s probably a gun in the school to protect against grizzlies,” she said. Her response was quickly fabricated by multiple media outlets using headlines such as “Betsy DeVos Says Guns Should Be Allowed in Schools. They Might Be Needed to Shoot Grizzlies” (Payne). The ethical and journalism issues brought here can be of fabrication, fake news, and headline grabbing.
Fabrication as we have discussed in class is never acceptable in the world of journalism. We examined this back when we looked at the story of Stephen Glass, and his downfall in which he fabricated multiple stories during his once promising journalism career, thus ruining it in the process. In this case, we are seeing outlets report what they see as their version of the truth and not reporting the full story, they are only publishing small bits of the full story thus spinning it to mean something else entirely. This act takes away the credibility of not just the outlet that publishes the story, but takes away the credibility from all the media outlets. Dianna Conley has pointed out her studies of media ethics that a credible media is one that is trusted by the people that read it (Conley). If the media is not trusted, then how can we take as we read as the truth?
A lot of what has happened here has been done to grab headlines and draw readers in. An ethical issue that can be addressed here is that yes, we want people to read our stories, but is this the right way to go about doing it? I can see the drawing factor of the headlines that were used for DeVos’ story but what it’s done is give the wrong context and misinformation. This only hurts us in the long run. Simply running a headline to get traffic to a story is not good journalism, and harms and damages the integrity of the outlet and journalist that publishes the story. It can also harm the reputation of the person that was the main target of the reporting. Betsy DeVos’ reputation could have been hurt due to these headlines and stories reporting false facts about what she said. These media outlets up and lied about it, and now the people that read their story now believe this to be what she had said. This now affects the public image and perception of DeVos. The journalists harmed her in the process as well, and not just the readers.
When it comes to fake news, there is a major road ahead in the way to go about trying to get rid of it, and it won’t disappear simply overnight. Journalist Joshua Benton, says that Facebook and the rise of social media is to blame for the uproar of fake news. He says that because it drives such a high traffic number of 2 billion people, that it “Drives more traffic than anywhere else on Earth. It’s also become a single point of failure for civic information.” Social media reaches a lot of people, and has become the main source of information for some people, if fake news is being shared so easily through these means, it becomes harder to stop. Though, Facebook recently has said that they are going to launch ways to combat it (Newmark).
Overall, I look at these events and think that it is very poor and unethical. You should never take a person’s words and spin them to mean something else, because it can cause a lot of damage. The damages in question can be to yourself as a journalist and to the person you’re reporting on. There are better ways of going about to get people to read your story, it starts with writing well informed pieces and not spinning the facts. The outlets can still provide a good headline, but you cannot have a headline that directly takes quotes and spins them out on context like Slate and CNN had done. It harms the ethics of journalism and breaks the integrity between the reader and news outlet. When a relationship like reader and journalist is based solely on the audience to report the truth, it can’t be taken for granted and broken like that. It is much harder to regain trust once it is broken.
References:
BENTON, J. (2016). Get Serious About Getting Rid Of Fake News. Nieman Reports, 70(4), 38-39.
Conley, D. (2009). Media Law and Ethics: Intersection of The New York Times Code of Ethics and Cases. Conference Papers — National Communication Association, 1
Newmark, C. (2017, April 10). How Facebook is Responding to Fake News. Retrieved April 12, 2017, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/how-facebook-is-responding-to-fake-news_us_58eb780de4b06f8c18beedc5
Payne, D. (2017, February 09). 16 Fake News Stories Reporters Have Run Since Trump Won. Retrieved April 12, 2017, from http://thefederalist.com/2017/02/06/16-fake-news-stories-reporters-have-run-since-trump-won/