Kelly Hawes
In a farewell column for the Washington Post, media critic Margaret Sullivan had some advice for those whose job it is to separate fact from fiction.
“Journalists simply can’t allow themselves to be megaphones or stenographers,” she wrote. “They have to be dedicated truth-tellers, using clear language, plenty of context and thoughtful framing to get that truth across.”
Finding reliable sources of information can be difficult.
Just ask Mark Hamill, the actor who played Luke Skywalker in the original “Star Wars” trilogy. Hamill tweeted what purported to be a banned book list from the state of Florida.
“This also works nicely as a Recommended Reading List,” Hamill told his 5.2 million followers.
An internet search brings up a number of fact checks, including one by Ali Swenson of The Associated Press. The story quoted a tweet from Bryan Griffin, press secretary for Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis.
“The State of Florida has not banned To Kill a Mockingbird,” he wrote. “In fact, Florida RECOMMENDS the book in 8th grade.”
Swenson also fact-checked Griffin’s claim in another tweet that “To Kill a Mockingbird” had been banned by the progressive Burbank Unified School District in California.
The story quoted Superintendent Matt Hill saying his district had not actually banned any books. Instead, it had removed “To Kill a Mockingbird” and four other books from its mandatory reading list. That’s the list of books the students in that district are required to read.
And then there’s the supposedly true story of the Midwestern farmer being pressured by John Deere to move his 10,000-acre farming operation to electric power.
On the post I saw, someone responded with a link to the fact-checking website Snopes.com. Snopes actually contacted John Deere to find out what really happened.
The company responded that it had no program like the one described in the post, and it went on to say it had never contacted farmers to ask that they switch to electric equipment and that it had no plans to produce the sort of equipment described in the post.
Snopes reached out to the original poster for a response, and he said he stood by his story.
As for the guy who shared the post? He responded with a link to FactCheck.org, an organization he claimed had called out Snopes as a tool of the liberal bogeyman George Soros and the Democratic Party.
I followed the link, and in a few clicks, I found this post about Snopes.
“At no point,” it said, “did we ever ‘expose’ the myth-busting website as ‘an extremely liberal propaganda site with an agenda to discredit anything that appears to be conservative.’ ” I’m guessing the guy who shared the link never actually read that.
Sullivan, of course, wasn’t talking about banned books or farm equipment. She was referring to candidates in the mold of serial liar Donald J. Trump.
Sullivan quoted ABC’s Jonathan Karl discussing what it would mean if Trump were to run for president again.
“How do you cover a candidate who is effectively anti-democratic?” he asked. “How do you cover a candidate who is running both against whoever the Democratic candidate is but also running against the very democratic system that makes all of this possible?”
Sullivan’s outlook isn’t particularly optimistic.
“Even if the reality-based press does a perfect job with coverage focused nonstop on the truth — and that’s unlikely — it will be no match for the duplicitous right-wing media, particularly Fox News with its all-in audience and constant work on behalf of Trump and his allies,” she wrote.
In the end, journalists can do only so much. It’s ultimately up to the audience to decide where it gets its news.
Just a tip, though. Those viral social media posts might not be the place to start.
Kelly Hawes is a columnist for CNHI News Indiana. This column is shared via Hoosier State Press Association. Send comments to [email protected].
