Fake News

Nicholas Morrow

3 May 2018

ENG 112 College Composition II

“Fake News: Does Truth Matter?”

Fake News Essay

In 2018, there is a lot of news. There is good news and bad news, big news and small news, interesting and boring news, and real news and fake news. With all these sources of news, it is important to know if the news is coming from a reliable source. Unfortunately, it can be hard to tell if news is legitimate or not, so everyone must be careful when they hear/see/read the news, that they do the proper fact checks. The reason that news is getting harder and harder to tell if it is legitimate or not, is because of social media and competition of news networks.

Social Media plays a big part of fake news. This is because it is hard to fact check a tweet or a Facebook post because they often do not include a source. It is easy for anyone to say whatever they want, and there is bound to be some people that believe it. Back in 2015, during the beginning of the 2016 presidential campaign, there was a picture posted to twitter that stirred up a lot of people. This post was a picture of presidential candidate Donald Trump and had, what seemed like, a quote by him to the side [this photograph can be found at the bottom of the page]. The quote reads: “If I were to run, I’d run as a Republican. They’re the dumbest group of voters in the country. They believe anything on Fox News. I could lie and they’d still eat it up. I bet my numbers would be terrific” (Farley). Under the alleged quote was written “People Magazine, 1998” (Farley). This seemed legit. The quote sounded like something that Trump would say based on the wording of the post. The post went viral and several people on both sides of the political spectrum were disgusted by this apparent quote. However, after a little digging, journalist Robert Farley discovered that this was a false quote meant to lead Republicans to lose trust in Trump. Farley “scoured” through the People Magazine archives in search of this quote and was not able to find it. As silly as it may be, one person decided to use their platform on social media to spread fake news to the public. Unfortunately, this does still happen and readers must be careful of the news they find on social media. It is important to fact check everything, even if it looks or seems legitimate.

Another reason that there is a spread of fake news today is because of the competition of news networks. Today, there are countless ways of getting news. Whether it be from a television news channel, an internet article, a social media post, a newspaper, etc. It is not hard to find out the current events. However, it is hard finding the most accurate current events. Because there are so many different news networks, there is a competition for who will get t out first. Unfortunately, when all these networks are racing to put the story out, it may not always be fully reliable or complete yet. In 2016, actor Denzel Washington said in an interview that the problem with news today is “the need to be first, not even to be true anymore” (Kurtz). He believes that all these reporters and journalists are racing against each other so that they can be the first ones to bring the news to the table. This often risks the authenticity of the story and runs the risk of alternative facts or incomplete stories. Competition amongst news anchors is a good thing. If there was only one news source, they could sell whatever they want and hide anything they want to hide. But it is important to fact check news articles before assuming that it is all true. Readers should look for at least one other reliable source before accepting a story as true.

With all the fake news out there it is important for Americans to be careful of what they believe. All news is not fake news, and there is still plenty of quality journalists who try hard to relay nothing but the truth. It is the readers’ job to make sure that these reporters and journalists are doing their jobs correctly. Americans need to watch out for fake news in the media used for propaganda and be sure to take into account that not everything on the internet or television is a fact. Social media and competition in the news makes it hard to tell what is fact or fiction, so it is important to fact check news sources to make sure that source is reliable and accurate.

Works Cited

Farley, Robert. “Fact Check: Did Trump say in '98 Republicans are dumb?” Reno Gazette Journal, 10 Dec. 2015, https://www.rgj.com/story/news/2015/12/10/fact-check-did-trump-say-98-republicans-dumb/77099822/, Accessed 03 May 2018.

Kurtz, Judy. “Denzel Washington blasts media for selling 'BS.'” The Hill. 06 Dec. 2016, http://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/309142-denzel-washington-blasts-media-for-selling-bs, Accessed 03 May 2018.