I describe ‘fake news’ as best as I can

Date: 3/1/2018

I was the guest of the East Longmeadow Lions last week and was asked to speak at their meeting. By the way, they are a great group doing good work in the town.

The subject, I was told, was to speak about “fake news” and so I undertook that assignment as best I could.

So, the following is kind of, sort of what I told them. Minus the gags and the mild curse words.         

I asked them to consider how slow paced our lives were if you’re a baby Boomer or solder back in the 1960s, ‘70s and into the ‘80s. The speed of our lives was dictated by the speed of technology.

It was a much slower world. Consider how your vacation photos took a week or so to get developed – a thought that would horrify many people today when photography is now instant.

We used the mail –  now called “snail mail.” Want a letter to get to its destination faster? Better put an airmail stamp on it.

Things took time and I think that created a very different world with different expectations.

Want immediate communications? The telephone provided that as long as the recipient of the call was actually in physical proximity of the right telephone. Yes, back then it was far easier to “unplug.”

If you looked at media, there were fewer choices in some mediums – far less TV, for instance – and far more news on radio and newspapers. There was a clear line drawn between what was news and what was opinion, as well. Stories were checked and double-checked before they were offered to the public.

That’s because newspapers were a mass medium designed to appeal to as many people as possible and a major vehicle for advertising. There was funding to support a legion of editors and reporters. Consumers frequently bought both a morning and afternoon newspaper.  

All of that changed with the introduction of the Web, the partisan “news” shows on cable TV and the development of a taste, of a demand for instant gratification. The culture of waiting and patience that was part of my life was over.

The web allowed for a new type of communication. Websites could be aimed at people with a particular interest – like magazines – but could be produced at a far less expensive rate. People soon started thinking that websites were like TV shows: people would come for the free content but could see various ads accompanying that content.

That seemed like the newspaper model, but a key difference is that with a website, one didn’t have the costs of printing and distribution. Advertisers started to take dollars away from the traditional media – newspapers and radio, especially – and transfered funds to websites believing they were the wave on which they had to ride.

Wounded news outlets responded in cutting content to shore up profits, which didn’t help matters. Websites soon discovered that it was difficult to attract as many advertisers as they needed to make money.

The advent of social medium meant that websites could use Facebook and Twitter as a way to market themselves to core audiences. With the continued polarization of the country, people soon learned that posting quickly written, often spurious stories was a way to attract an audience who more and more wanted quick sensational reads.

The website was successful if the selected story gave positive reinforcement to an already held opinion by a reader. It didn’t necessary have to be accurate as too many readers seemed to no longer care for the vetting that would have been used a generation ago.

With the arrival of FOX News on cable there was a blurring of the lines between opinion and objective news. Other cable channels followed suit with programs of their own that did the same thing.

In my humble analysis, we have the capacity of seeing “fake news” because people want content that mirrors their own opinion and there are “media outlets” understanding there is money to be made by appealing to that situation. We have “fake news” because people believe that if it’s reported in some fashion, then it must be accurate. We have “fake news” because audiences want everything immediately.

We also have “fake news” because too many people don’t want to question what they read, hear or view.

Of course, there were newspapers that slanted their coverage back in the day, but I think people more readily understood if a newspaper was liberal or conservative in its editorial outlook. They could accept it or reject it.

Today it’s no longer a matter of opinion for many. Instead it’s a matter of right and wrong and that status determined not by the quality of the reporting but instead by the preconceived ideas consumers have.

In the words of cartoonist Walt Kelly, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”