There is nothing new about critical readers expressing their concerns about what they read in the Star in strong words. My in-box, and those of most other journalists here, is evidence of that.
What is new in recent weeks however is the fact some of those critics are increasingly hurling a new term of insult our way to express disdain about what they read in the Toronto Star: Fake News.
We are seeing this degrading label now in emails, in Facebook and Instagram comments and in tweets directed at the Star and its journalists.
“Go report some real news and stop contributing to fake news,” one such reader told Daniel Dale, the Star’s Washington correspondent.
“Sounds like an alternative fact to me. Fake news,” said a reader who disagreed with a report on road tolls written by David Rider, the Star’s City Hall bureau chief.
“More fake news from the Toronto Star. Sad,” said a reader critical of a Washington Post wire service report about President Donald Trump’s first week in office.
“Sadly, your biased, incorrect and fake news is the reason your newspaper is struggling,” another told me. “Readers want facts.”
Here are the facts: The charge of “fake news” is now being thrown at the mainstream media, by largely partisan critics, as an all-encompassing derisive epithet, largely devoid of its original, and accurate, meaning.
The new U.S. president and his followers have clearly co-opted these words in their campaign to delegitimize the press and discredit legitimate reporting that seeks to hold the new administration to account — as journalists should and must in upholding their responsibilities within a democracy.
Want more facts? Fake news is not news you happen to disagree with. And nor is it news from responsible news organizations that includes mistakes, made honestly and corrected honestly in line with the journalistic commitment to accuracy and fairness. Unfortunately, I have seen this insult used in regard to the Star’s journalism in both of these circumstances, in some cases from people I would have expected to know better, such as a university journalism professor and a former newspaper publisher.
While real fake news is a matter of legitimate concern, the distinction about what is and is not fake news matters much in this troubling time when we face an assault on truth and daily debate about facts and “alternative facts” in what is increasingly coming to be regarded as a “post-truth world.” Easy, derisive labels that allow critics to dismiss outright information they disagree with, or news reports they regard as substandard, seem to me to be dangerously reductive.
So, what is fake news?
To answer that accurately, we must look to Craig Silverman the Canadian journalist who first wrote about the phenomena of fake news for BuzzFeed News in November. Silverman, who has achieved global recognition for this important work, exposed the reality of fraudulent news, deliberately created and shared, largely on Facebook, to gain advertising dollars. Much of what he discovered was pro-Trump fake news that cast his opponent, Hillary Clinton, in a negative light with clearly false information.
Silverman’s reporting provided a fascinating look into the digital media universe and the ease with which wholly made-up “news” could be spread – and seemingly, believed. This “ecosystem” of fabricated information presented as serious news continues to be a significant concern in discerning the credibility of news sources.
But, almost as soon as the term “fake news” became part of our lexicon it was co-opted by Trump for his own ends, casting aspersions on the credibility of legitimate news organizations committed to ethical standards of journalism.
Who could forget Trump, during a televised press conference refusing to take a question from a CNN reporter, telling him, “You are fake news.” Or, his many tweets labeling the New York Times’ carefully sourced journalism as “fake news.” He was at it again this week, tweeting Thursday about “FAKE NEWS media, which makes up stories and ‘sources.’’’
Silverman is clear about how he defines fake news: “My definition of fake news has three criteria: it has to be 100-percent false – not a news article or partisan site that gets a few facts wrong; it has to be created consciously to be false; and there has to be an economic motive,” he said this week at an event at University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics.
Silverman, now media editor of BuzzFeed News, is well aware that the term has been exploited by critics of legitimate news and will likely continue to be. “I think the term fake news has almost been rendered meaningless at this point,” he said.
Indeed. I have yet to see any validity in any of the “fake news” charges lobbed our way. While it should go without saying, I think it’s safe to say, the Toronto Star is not in the business of fake news. While this news organization’s work does sometimes fall short of its own journalistic standards, to suggest that the Star would deliberately publish false information is wrong. We don’t make stuff up.
And, that’s a fact.
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