How NOT To Spot Fake News

Just because a news story is bad or troublesome that doesn’t make it FAKE...

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There’s been all kinds of talk recently about “fake news”, by which people normally mean incorrect or invented information, unsourced claims or patently outlandish assertions, often aimed at stirring the political … doo-doo. Fake news is even thought to have played a meaningful part the outcome of the the 2016 American presidential election. WE … are gonna do something different. We’re not gonna talk about how to spot fake news. We’re gonna talk about about how NOT to spot fake news, about how certain news items can seem suspect... but not all blemishes make their stories necessarily fake. We’re gonna talk about what ISN’T fake news by using Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman’s book Manufacturing Consent, as our guide. If you’re unfamiliar, these gents argue that newsmedia can function in subtle, even unmeaning ways to get people to agree with the news source, and one another, on the issues of the day and political or economic positions which largely... benefit the powerful. They call this ability the news media’s “propaganda function”, and they claim it’s built into the very structure of media itself, even media which you’d never point at and go “HEY! THAT’S A PROPAGANDA!” So follow along with us with our handy guide on how NOT to spot fake news.

--COMMENT RESPONSES TO LAST WEEK’S EPISODE--

--TWEET OF THE WEEK--

--FURTHER READING & SOURCES--

--ASSET LINKS--

00:25 Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election

00:34 The Guardian Article

00:35 Cyborgology Article

00:38 On The Media Handbook

3:26 The Young Turks

3:44 Bias? In My Algorithms? A Facebook News Story

8:38 Cold War in 9 Minutes

--MERCH--
T-Shirts Designed by:

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[jasey-]

This is unquestionably the best video idea channel has ever done, I'm SO happy you guys chose to tackle this subject!

[jamesj.]

"Be mindful of the difference between being mad at a piece of reporting, and being mad with a piece of reporting."
^that's gonna stick in my head, great video!

[ericwWu]

"Fake news, fully fabricated and false news isnt the only way news can be bad or troublesome. And because a story is bad or troublesome, that doesn't make it fake. By unquestionably dismissing it as such, you may be doing yourself a disservice as a concerned citizen hoping to stay informed."
Damn, that was deep. Kudos :)

[devintoshea]

I do not normally post - but thank you all PBS Idea channel and all that you all do. Love love love

[freyjasvansdottir]

Bonus fact: The old man in a beret at 6:58 is Meyer, the very gay janitor from the 1970's Danish tv series "Huset på Christianshavn" or "The house in Christian's Harbour"

[richardhutnik]

I have a feeling that "fake news" is trying to be defined as "that item is not worth paying attention to" rather than true or false.

[arvidsteel]

"and were gonna talk about what isn't fake news by using Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Hermans book Manufacturing consent".

I literally just came from the documentary about that from 1992, huh.

[shaunaaaah]

This kind of thing is why I think philosophy and it's critical thinking skills needs to be part of the public curriculum.

[johnwolfenden]

Here's an idea: W is the only letter that doesn't have the sound it makes in it's name. That is unfair. I say it should be known now as wigglewoo.

[gblatt]

I was going to ask why there wouldn't be a comment response video... then I read a few of the comments, many of which were sarcastic (at least, I hope that was sarcasm), or just unhappy that you chose to cover this topic (something you've already covered beautifully in this weeks comments vid), so maybe you guys have the gift of foresight afterall. Keep up the good work.

[Anonarchist]

"There will be no comment response video because I can see the flames from here."

[sourcedrop]

i may have missed it but perhaps the BIGGEST thing news outlets use is WORDS. for instance, if someone got killed and the news didn't think they were too important of a person, they'd just say so-and-so got killed.

if the person was veiwed as very important they'd say he was brutally murdered.

both phrases mean the same thing but they have very different EMOTIONAL impact. and the news uses your emotions to sway you to whatever side they want you on.

next time you listen to the news keep an ear out for emotionally impactful words and ask yourself how things would change if you swapped in or out certain words.

[stroleroy]

I'm doing a school project on denialism and how people can deny fact. what i've found is that it all goes back to psychology and how the human brain works. I just wanted to hear other opinions on the topic, obviously fake news is one example.

[Nirovax]

I think Terry Goodkind puts it best in his Sword of Truth book series: "Wizard's First Rule: People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they're afraid it might be true. Peoples' heads are full of knowledge, facts and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool."

[RandallStephens]

This video turned out to be even better than I expected it to be, because it clued me in to some of the nature behind the sources I get my news from.

I tend to trust comedy news shows because jokes, by virtue of being funny, have a way of revealing the truth.

[StubbeA]

This is true for America. But most developed countries have a government funded news/media network operating autonomously. Here in Denmark we have DR (Danmarks Radio). No need for advertisement means reduced profit incentive, freeing the network to focus on quality over monetary value.

[hollyhandgrenade]

It's so sad. We live in a Cyberpunk time but I still don't have a Direct Neural Interface.

[JohnathanEnder]

Easiest and most helpful way to support true news vs fake news: support your local library.

[kinosmead]

That first sentence is something that nobody has ever really managed to say. Thank you.

[wwklnd]

I'm not entirely sure how to phrase this, but I think it's important to take into account when discussing this that the dominant ideology of the world, liberal capitalism¹, surrounds everything and it's very easy to gloss over the effect it has. For example, US liberalism is often viewed as left-wing, since the window of acceptable discourse is shifted quite far rightward, even though on the grander scale of political ideology it's quite far to the right.
Even the authoritarian-libertarian divide used among other places in the "Political compass" is based on assumptions rooted in liberal axioms about what counts as liberties -- for example, when the UN adopted the declaration of human rights there were actually two "camps" suggesting different sorts of rights, with western liberal countries pushing for individual rights such as freedom of speech, private property, etc., and the USSR and its satellites pushing for more material collective rights that would guarantee the well-being of the masses but which most liberals would consider the state meddling in the lives of the individual too much.

I've probably lost everyone by now with my rambling, but what I want to get across is that when considering what is and isn't "fake news", keep in mind that a dominant ideology exists, and that ideology affects both your views and how the media report on things, as well as how likely you are to consider ideas different from what is generally seen as common knowledge, even if, when given consideration, you might find that those ideas actually turn out to be supported by a lot of evidence.

¹ Yes, both US liberalism and conservatism falls under the umbrella of liberal ideology, as they are capitalist in nature and not fully fascist.