TOM LARIMER
Executive Director,
Arkansas Press Association
It might be comical if it weren’t so discouraging that some are just now figuring out that some, perhaps a lot, of the “news” on Facebook and other social media is false. Really? A whole lot of it is just someone making stuff up to sway the easily swayed, or to reinforce the pre-conceived notions of the already convinced.
Facebook appears shocked and offended that anyone would suggest this to be true. I would be shocked if anyone believed otherwise.
Social media has been exposed to have a darker underbelly, providing a bully pulpit which was used very effectively by some wishing to influence opinions of those who rely on social media for most of their news. Most do it for profit, selling advertising on their phony sites.
Now that’s a scary reality for you. Relying on social media for your news. What sort of world does someone live in that relies on social media for news?
The prevailing candidate didn’t help matters any when he painted all media with the same brush, labeling them “bad people.” The media as a whole took a bashing during the campaign months of the past year or so.
Admittedly there are likely some “bad people” masquerading as working media, and I’m guessing it’s these bad apples that are soiling and spoiling the whole media barrel.
The media has somehow become the enemy, or at least an arm of it. Those intent on deception and misdirection have been fairly successful in convincing just a whole lot of potential voters that the media is part of the vast conspiracy that is keeping them from being happy and prosperous.
And a lot of that convincing came via social media where a growing number of people spend an inordinate amount of time reading “news” of dubious value or credibility. It was just the tool for those ill-concerned about being held accountable; those who have no qualms about not letting the truth get in the way of a good story.
And the social media consumers slurp it up like obedient lap dogs. Not only do they lap it up, but also they regurgitate it over and over, further spreading the “news” that advances the cause of whomever made the original post.
Social media has led us like so many lemmings looking for a cliff off which to blindly plunge. There’s no real explanation for the action. It’s just what we felt like doing because it felt right at the time.
Unintended consequences? Well, those were barely considered if considered at all.
Social media is the perfect tool for influencing millions of people with very little expense or accountability. Yeah, a lot of the “news” posted was false and misleading, but who’s accountable for that? Facebook will tell you, “not us.” Ditto Twitter.
And to a certain extent they are correct. They are, after all, only the conduit through which those who would purvey misleading or downright false news flush their swill and then sit back chuckling as the rubes not only soak it up but gleefully pass it along.
So then, who is accountable? The point is that nobody is accountable anymore, and when nobody is accountable we’ve got a problem.
When a newspaper publishes a story exposing corruption in government or in the private business sector, they are accountable for making sure that every detail of the story is accurate. We still can be criticized, sometimes fairly so, for publishing any story, but the bottom line is that WE, and only WE, are accountable. We’re easy to find and stand ready to be accountable and answerable for what we publish.
Can any social media say that? Well, I suppose anyone could say it but, like a lot of Facebook posts, the veracity of the statement might be called into question.
This column was born of frustration that we as a people have allowed ourselves to be influenced by all the wrong sources. We’ve come to believe the unbelievable and unreliable, and certainly the unaccountable, and eschew the reliable and the credible.
Social media was intended to be entertainment. It was to provide a mouthpiece for those who didn’t have one, and a means of staying in touch with friends and with family. Could there be any argument that is has become much more?
So our incoming president castigates the “media” as vile and corrupt, and his chorus of followers, and they are legion, cheer him on in agreement through various social media channels.
Meanwhile the hard working journalists working day in and day out in the trenches under all sorts of deadline pressure and little to show for it at the end of the day now have to be subjected to this sort of derision. I’m beginning to understand how attorneys feel. Certainly not all attorneys are of the ambulance-chasing variety, but also certainly there are enough of them to taint the whole barrel and to reflect poorly on the rest.
We’ve all heard the lawyer jokes. Are journalist jokes next?
Just as certainly there are enough media participants, be they social or otherwise, passing themselves off as journalists. There are certainly enough to taint the journalist barrel as well.
I know. It hardly seems fair when you do all things expected of a good journalist, including making yourself accountable, and then you get lumped in with this bunch of goobers. It is at the same time disheartening and discouraging for serious journalists who give it any thought. That includes me, who after all these years still considers myself a journalist at heart.
So what is the answer to all of this? I don’t really have one but to encourage journalists to keep on doing what they do every day and to rise above the fray so to speak. We should be holding our collective selves out as examples of what journalism is supposed to be and what it should be.
And we can hope that in the not too distant future, those with sufficient brain cells remaining to rub together and formulate a complete thought will concur that perhaps we’re being overly influenced by unaccountable “news” sources.
Maybe. Hopefully. We can only hope.