my kids my in-laws and I are getting
ready to go to dinner and my phone
starts going off with breaking news
alerts I only get my breaking news from
reliable sources I’ve been a journalist
for for 24 25 years I only get it from
sources that rigorously check their
information so when I look up and I see
this tweet that George Michael has died
I tell my family my kids look up from
their phones like some of you too young
to understand the George Michael sang
every last hopeful song at my high
school dances my wife does what she
often does she started relating those
things that George Michael is known for
sort of an impromptu obituary my
mother-in-law didn’t seem to have a
reaction she was standing over by the
side working on her computer sitting
working on her computer moments later
she pipes up that it’s a hoax he’s not
dead
so my first thought is did the New York
Times and CNN both get tricked I mean
George Michael was pretty young it was
believable that maybe he didn’t die so I
quickly walked over to her I’m looking
over her shoulder and the article she’s
reading is from a website I’ve never
seen before and it’s dated the next day
so I said I think what you’re looking at
is a hoax
my wife is an analyst she pokes up pipes
up and says actually maybe it’s
published in Australia where it’s
already tomorrow so the fact that it’s
the next day isn’t relevant so now this
whole thing is thrown into confusion and
we spend a little bit of time trying to
figure out whether the New York Times
and The Wall Street Journal have have
tricked us but the fact is that it was
dead unfortunately and it sort of points
to a bigger problem and that is that
fake news shows confusion that obscures
basic facts that prevents necessary
debate while you’re wasting your time
figuring out whether the news is
actually true or not you’re not having
the necessary debates whether it’s about
whether Michael George Michael was a
great artist or not
the fact is this is what it does and in
this troubled world in which we are in
even basic facts are now up for debate
now everything that’s not news isn’t
fake news I’m talking about a very
specific subset of things so for
instance we’ve got something called
native advertising you may be familiar
with this it’s advertising it’s a story
that’s paid for by an advertiser placed
in a prominent place in this case it’s
the Atlantic magazine and unless you can
actually see that little thing that says
sponsor content you may not be aware
that this isn’t really a news story
written by a journalist so while that’s
not terrific I don’t raise it to the
level of fake news because there’s some
signposts there that it is actually fake
and then there’s this satire you
probably enjoy satire I enjoy satire
it’s funny it’s opinionated it’s not
always accurate though the good news
though is that it has some basis in
accuracy if you get all of your news
from satire that’s a bit of a problem
but if you use it for some of your news
I don’t think it rises to the level of
fake news the other thing that’s not
fake news is a mistake
inadvertently spreading incorrect
information a bad source something like
that if CNN had tweeted that George
Michael had died and George Michael
hadn’t died it would have been corrected
very quickly they would have been an
apology and you would have moved on so
if the intent is not to deceive I don’t
think that counts as fake news either
let me give you another example
some years ago 2012 I tweeted out based
on information from CNN where I worked
at the time relating to a shooting that
had happened outside the Empire State
Building in New York and this is what I
tweeted breaking law enforcement source
tells CNN there appears to be no
terrorism connection to the Empire State
Building shooting except look at that
tweet a little more carefully I forgot
the word know I learned the hard way
about the meaning of the word no that
day that tweet went out and it said
exactly what it says they’re breaking
law enforcement source tells CNN there
appears to be terrorism connection to
the Empire State Building you can
imagine the effect that had that tweet
spread like wildfire
it went out there I deleted it which is
not something you’re supposed to do but
in that particular case when I nedd
knowingly spread inadvertently spread
false information I thought deleting it
would be the best thing to do I
apologize I responded to everybody who
forwarded that tweet and everybody who
responded to it I said sorry to my boss
I had a big talking to and I learned the
word the meaning of the word no but what
nobody accused me of was lying or of
spreading fake news they understood that
this whole problem was about my fat
fingers it wasn’t about my credibility
the real problem is that there is fake
news and it’s spread by a wolf and
journalists clothing and this wolf would
have you believe that the real news is
actually fake and that’s the real
problem that we’re facing today on
December 4th I tweeted this out and
notice in the bottom it was retweeted
11,000 times I tweeted breaking news the
US Army Corps of Engineers halts the
Dakota access pipeline work telling the
Standing Rock reservation that the
current route for the pipeline will be
denied this is a very controversial
issue I had this news earlier than most
people did which is why it spread so
many times because people wanted to
distribute this information but one of
the first responses I got to this tweet
was what’s your source now come on I’m
not a journalism student I’m a veteran
journalist in my 24th year of this
business if I spread breaking news that
is false or wrong I am going to at the
very least get disciplined and I could
actually get fired but increasingly I am
getting pushed back on social media from
people who accuse me of purveying fake
news there will my if you if you put in
my name on you know my handle and fake
news hashtag fake news you’ll see things
show up and when you accuse legitimate
journalists of being purveyors of fake
news of lying it’s a little bit like
asking somebody when he stopped beating
his wife some of the damage is done in
the accusation alone and when you deal
Ajith amis journalism and when you deal
Agito my’s facts and when you do that
you create a vacuum in one of the most
important checks in civil economic and
political
discourse because who then is going to
be there to hold power to account is the
crowd going to do it I get paid to do it
others get paid to read information this
is one of the major dangers of accusing
real news providers of fake news let’s
talk about a crowd that’s a crowd of 17
different US intelligence agencies all
of which concluded that Russia had
hacked the u.s. presidential election
with the aim towards supporting Donald
Trump but the president the new newly
elected president of the United States
didn’t believe it and 80% of his
followers didn’t believe it either but
of the rumor that Hillary Clinton was
running a child sex slave ring out of
the basement of this suburban DC pizza
parlor 50% of his supporters believe
that it could have been true including
one who went there armed and fired three
bullets he didn’t kill anyone
he didn’t injure anybody he didn’t even
hit anybody and he seemed honestly
surprised that not only was there no
child sex slave ring but there wasn’t
even a basement many of Donald Trump’s
followers believe this new claim he’s
made that millions of people voted
illegally in this election except that
there’s no evidence there’s no proof
there’s no nothing it’s just out there
approximately half of Donald Trump
supporters according to the latest poll
latest poll believe that Donald that
Barack Obama is a Kenyan born Muslim now
the irony of all of this is that I
actually am a Kenyan born Muslim and he
so this is part of the problem that that
there’s stuff out there that that just
doesn’t work it would be bad enough if
the President of the United States
wasn’t going out of his way to actually
promote some of this stuff I thought we
were going into this election we would
be covering really important things like
how to rebuild America’s crumbling
infrastructure and how to increase wages
for a workers in America but instead we
are debating discussing and reporting on
absolute nonsense and part of that is
because people don’t really think that
we’re doing the right thing that we in
journalism are doing what we’re supposed
to be doing this is fed by a concept the
traditional media which is what I’m
referring to the places I’ve worked the
CNN’s the CTV’s the Al Jazeera is the
MSNBC s and NBC’s the traditional media
perpetrates this elite consensus that
questions some assumptions more than it
questions other assumptions that somehow
what we do is removed from the reality
of people’s lives that we do our work in
an ivory tower while news actually
happens where people live people in my
industry say that their goal is to hold
power to account and yet on the Friday
of inauguration I was watching
newscasters on national news dressed to
attend the inaugural balls of the
President of the United States the same
thing happens on the night of the White
House Correspondents Dinner where we
cover the fact that we’re all at these
events
why don’t you list try so hard to get
themselves invited into the corridors of
power and when we’re there why are we
there not representing the people but
rather there as invited guests eating
the catered food I get it traditional
journalism is flawed I get it we have
some things to fix but I’m worried that
what we’re doing and what fake news is
helping us do is throw the baby out with
the bathwater and that’s dangerous
because we are uniquely equipped and
resourced to hold power to account even
if you don’t believe we do it all the
time on the first Sunday after the
inauguration on Meet the Press I don’t
know if how many of you ever watch Meet
the Press but it’s on NBC my colleague
Chuck
it hosts it and Kellyanne Conway went up
you may have seen this clip she went up
there and told Chuck that there are
alternative facts we’d never really
heard that term before and Chuck very
quickly responded that alternative facts
are not facts but part of the problem is
that when the President of the United
States is encouraging his supporters to
believe that the media is not just out
of touch or somewhat ineffective but
it’s actually lying it causes the
problem and that’s just one in a range
of problems that are caused by this fake
news phenomenon at its lowest level it’s
a time suck it confuses you it causes
you to spend your time trying to discern
between fake news and real news and I
think over time it can blunt your
ability to actually do so I’ll give you
an example a BuzzFeed study said that in
2016 of the top 20 fake news stories on
fake Facebook they had 8.7 million
shares comments reactions of the top 20
real news stories by major news
organizations they had 1.7 million fewer
so fake news is crowding out real news
it means that journalists like me
instead of following other stories and
giving you new journalism and telling
you stories about new things we’re busy
debunking myths and that’s part of the
problem that we’ve got and it’s it’s
it’s about money initially it started to
be about money and advertising and let
me tell you how it used to work in the
world of money and advertising in the
old days a newspaper ad department
person would meet with a real person at
an advertising agency who was working on
behalf of a advertiser a company that
wanted to be associated one of their
brand associated with the the news
outlets brand but none of this happens
anymore
now algorithms determine the ads you see
on the internet based on your surfing
habits or your shopping habits and based
on the cookies that are on the sites
that you use so you get information they
where you surf and if you start
consuming fake news you’ll actually end
up with more of it let me explain to you
how these people make money let’s say
that you saw a story show up somewhere
in your feed that Justin Bieber is
moving to Kingston doesn’t really matter
whether you like Justin Bieber or you
don’t if he’s moving to Kingston you’re
going to you’re going to check the story
you’re gonna click on the story and they
count on the fact that you do so you’re
going to go to this absolutely made-up
story and but there’ll be an ad near it
and as a result the advertiser pays the
owner of that website a certain amount
of money a fraction of a cent and they
do this lots of times then let’s say
this this purveyor of fake news takes
that story and changes Kingston to one
of any of 100 different or fully 100
different towns around the country so
now everybody’s clicking on this story
and that they change the name of Justin
Bieber to one of a hundred different
other celebrities this is how it happens
everybody clicks on these things
this is how they end up making money and
it’s dangerous and what if it’s not
actually about making money it’s really
not harmful that you read a story about
Justin Bieber moving to Kingston if
Justin Bieber’s not actually moving to
Kingston again it’s a time suck but
doesn’t really matter but what if it’s
about religion or it’s about ideology or
it’s there to influence politics that’s
the danger so my first piece of advice
to you is that if you wish to avoid the
purveyors of fake news who live in dark
alleys stay out of the dark alleys trust
and support traditional journalism which
is devoted to research and fact-checking
an in-depth investigation of issues the
very journalism that is under attack
right now it’s under attack because it
doesn’t do everything you wanted it to
do but it’s still there and you should
actually try and rely on it you want a
fact check and fact-checking is becoming
easier and easier now because these
fact-checking sites abound but how do
you actually fight this kind of nonsense
how do you fight the journalism that’s
out there well you start by by
supporting these journalistic
organizations and you start by using
these fact-checking sites if the New
York Times and CNN tell you they’ve
take checking deaths out very seriously
and they both do it independently if
they tell you George Michael’s dead
George Michael is probably actually dead
if Donald Trump says his inauguration
crowds were bigger than Barack Obama’s
inauguration crowds check the
methodology that he’s citing and check
the methodology of those who are saying
otherwise it’s actually relatively easy
to do sometimes it’s just your eyeballs
that you need but the fact is there are
fact-checking sites out there and
remember that fake news purveyors count
on the fact that you are abject ly lazy
and you are much more likely to repost
salacious news than to actually check
the veracity of real news check it it’s
not hard to do you can get out there and
and and find out what’s going on I’m not
saying that you have to trust everything
that mainstream media tells you but I
would give it more weight than I would
give to an unverified source the other
thing you should do is don’t spread fake
news fake news grows exponentially
because you share it either because it
validates your beliefs or because you
don’t know it’s fake news so check it
don’t spread it hold those of your
friends who do spread it to account make
sure they don’t do that there’s some
salacious fantastic stuff on the
internet and as much as you’d like to
believe it if it turns out not to be
true it’s on you and in a world where
your reputation is determined on social
media in many cases if you become known
as someone who like your crazy uncle who
forwards these email strings that make
no sense
people will stop trusting you they just
won’t trust the information it’s a it
becomes the boy who cried wolf
look journalism is a serious business
you have to understand how to consume it
you have to cross-reference it but you
have to trust certain things everywhere
I have worked has had a methodology for
for checking otherwise uncorroborated
information it varies from organization
to organization but typically you need
two independent sources who can tell you
the same thing or at least one source
that is very highly placed and if you
don’t do that if you don’t do it that
way you could get fired is the source
that you’re reading as rigorous as that
look journalism
is getting better crowdsourcing is out
there Facebook is using on member
reporters using member reporting as well
as algorithms to try and wake weed out
fake news Wikipedia is getting better by
the day and the hunger is out there for
good quality journalism remember what
journalism is meant to do it has two
purposes the first one is to bear
witness to simply be there to say that
something is happening but the second
one is more important it’s to hold power
to account and together let’s not go
down a road where we end up in a world
where not only are we not speaking truth
to power but we’re not even able to
discern the truth thank you [Applause]