Fake News: What is It?

There has been a lot of concern recently about fake news.

We rely on the news to gain a clear view of the world. So, understanding what constitutes good news and fake news is important.

In this post, I want to examine the term fake in reference to news.

This can help us clearly determine what fake news is or is not.

And I would also like to look at few other news-related words: inaccurate, unethical, and biased news.

At the end, I also explain how we can find news that truly educates, rather than indoctrinates.

Real Fake News

In common usage, the word fake means entirely made up.

For instance, if we were to speak of fake story, it would be a story that someone made up and had no actual bearing in reality.

A good example of fake news in this sense is the type of news we see in tabloid magazines like the National Enquirer.

For instance, stories like “Rural Farm Wife Gives Birth to Two-headed Alien” or “Elvis Seen Windsurfing Near Shores of Mediterranean Island” are certainly an example of fake news.

We recognize that these stories are fake because they have no basis in reality.

They are often completely fabricated or based on facts taken wildly out of context.

This is quite a bit different from the way legitimate news sources operate.

Journalistic Codes of Conduct

Real news reporters are required to adhere to basic journalist standards and ethics.

For instance, the Society of Professional Journalists has a basic code of ethics that members must follow. It contains ethics standards such as these:

Journalists are required to . . .

“Take responsibility for the accuracy of their work. Verify information before releasing it. Use original sources whenever possible.

Remember that neither speed nor format excuses inaccuracy. Provide context. Take special care not to misrepresent or oversimplify in promoting, previewing, or summarizing a story.

Gather, update, and correct information throughout the life of a news story.”

Ethical standards like this are pretty common for most major news reporting agencies.

For example, here is the Handbook of Values and Practices for the New York Times. Here is the Ethics Handbook for NPR.

That isn’t to say that the journalists of these news agencies always adhere to these journalistic standards.

It does mean, however, that there is some standard to which journalists are held.

And they can be fired or publicly shamed if they don’t follow the standard.

Unethical News

And this is one of the key differences between unreliable reporting (like tabloids) and real journalistic organizations.

Unreliable reporting organizations do not have a code of ethics.

Or if they do, they do not really hold their writers accountable for following these ethics.

Because of this, tabloid news is often unethical.

That is because the people writing for tabloids are not following any clear rule of journalistic conduct.

Instead, they are write what sells, without consideration to how their news affects their readers.

That is unethical.

There is another kind of news we must examine.

And that is inaccurate news. Inaccurate news is quite a bit different from fake news.

News can be inaccurate without being fake.

Contemporary reports of Elvis windsurfing would indeed be fake news.

Inaccurate News

Inaccurate news is based in reality, but the report mistakes or misconstrues details.

So, for instance, a reporter might report on an accident and give inaccurate details about how many people were involved in the crash.

Or he might misspell the names of the people involved.

Newspapers often include corrections at the end of stories when they learn that details of the story are in error.

Inaccurate news is certainly a concern.

After all, the public relies on the news to gain information about public incidences like accidents, political issues, and the state of the economy.

If the news is inaccurate all the time, it is certainly not helpful.

However, there are different levels of severity when it comes to news inaccuracies.

Certainly it is much more concerning when a journalist reports an inaccurate fact about a war than it is when a journalist inaccurately reports the street name in which a car collision occurs.[1]

And it is much more serious when a journalist purposely reports inaccurate news for ulterior motives (such as a bribe) than it is when a journalist simply reports inaccurate news by accident with no ulterior motive.

Of course, consequences could still be dire in the latter case.

But it would not have the added layer of unethical behavior.

When a journalist reports inaccurate news from ulterior motives, the news is both inaccurate and unethical.

The point is that inaccurate news can certainly be serious. But not all journalistic inaccuracies are equal in severity.

Biased News

In addition to fake news, inaccurate news, and unethical news, there is also biased news.

In its broadest meaning, bias can just refer to an inclination someone has towards one thing or another.

For instance, growing up in Oregon, I developed a bias towards rainy days over sunny days.

I also tend to have a bias towards brown hair because everyone in my family has brown hair.

When the word bias is used to describe news, it usually refers to news that seems to favor one political party or one political candidate.

Quite frequently, people speak of a news source as having a liberal or conservative bias.

It is important to note, I think, that if we take the word bias in its broadest sense—a general inclination towards one thing or another–it is impossible to have completely unbiased news.

Whenever newspapers publish, they must choose from literally millions of possible news stories they could cover.

And in order to make such a decision, they have to use criteria concerning what news is newsworthy.

Once they choose what news to cover, journalists must decide what words they will use to describe that news.

For instance, if a reporter writes a news story about a dog getting loose and attacking someone, there are a number of ways she could report on the news.

She could report that this dog getting lose is just a fluke. Or she could report that the dog incident represents a larger public problem.

She could report on people’s response to the incident as reflecting common stereotypes about certain types of dogs.

Or she could report on the way in which animal control is slow to respond to complaints about loose animals in the neighborhood.

The point is that the journalist must choose a particular way of framing the story.

And the only way she can do this is by making certain assumptions about what counts as important, relevant, and priority news.

All reporters believe that some story angles are more important, relevant, or of greater priority than others.

So the question is not whether a news source is biased because all news sources contain some bias.

The question is whether a new source is unfairly biased.

Many news organizations have rules journalists must follow to avoid unfair bias.

For instance, reporters must interview a wide variety of people with different views on the issue.

And, as another example, they must avoid clearly biased and inflammatory language in their article.

For example, the Society for Professional Journalists states that reporters must “Support the open and civil exchange of views, even views they find repugnant.”

The Society also says that reporters must “Avoid stereotyping. Journalists should examine the way the ways their values and experiences my shape their reporting” and that journalists must “label advocacy and commentary”, to alert their audiences to the fact that the piece is an opinion piece.

Certainly journalists and newspapers do not always avoid unfair bias.

Nevertheless, the more a newspaper or news source follows accountability rules, the better it does at this.

One great way to know if your news source is reporting real or fake news is to see if they have a journalistic code of conduct.

This code requires them to cross-check information, combat bias, avoid inflammatory language, and follow other procedures that decrease the likelihood of fake news.

Now here is why I think the distinction between fake news, incorrect news, and biased news is important.

The term fake news has become a common part of national discourse.

But when people use the term fake in reference to news, they often use it to refer to biased news, or more specifically to news with which they disagree.

But it’s important to note that just because we disagree with the way a certain news story is written (its particular bias), doesn’t mean it is fake.

It could be, in fact, that the news story is correct, and our view of the matter is incorrect.

And remember that all news stories have at least some bias because completely unbiased news is impossible.

So, again, the question is not whether the news is biased. All news has some bias.

The question is whether a story is unfairly biased.

We should be concerned about unfairly biased news, even if the bias is in our favor.

That’s because unfairly biased news isn’t virtuous or wise.

 It does not strive to inform or educate; it strives to indoctrinate.

The good news is that if we want to read news sources that inform and educate, there is a great way to do that.

We can read a variety of news sources that adhere to a journalistic code of conduct.

And we can use our own critical thinking as well to discern bias and whether the bias informs or indoctrinates in a particular case.

Such new practices help us aim for truth and wisdom, avoid indoctrination, and escape the peril of actual fake news.

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