End of preview. Want to read all 26 pages? Upload your study docs or become a Course Hero member to access this document Test, Common Sense, Bill of Rights, Articles of Confederation, The Land, American Revolution, Native Americans in the United States, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, Gibbons v Ogden, 1776, The Declaration of Independence, The Sedition Act,
A few decades ago, lawmakers had a harder time playing tricks on the American people. The presence in Congress of conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans meant there would be vigorous dissent if cheap ploys were attempted. A false claim loses traction when partisans hear lawmakers of their own party say it’s phony. The public is at fault, too. They recognize that much of what politicians say is self-serving. But messages don’t arrive with a warning sign or seal of approval that would allow people to separate fact from fiction. And studies indicate that most citizens are not very good at distinguishing between the two. It doesn’t help that we are in a post-truth age where alternative realities are being peddled at every turn. We have slipped into a time when facts are increasingly what people would like them to be Political elites bear much of the blame for the recent sharp rise in misinformation. Many of them are more than willing to employ false claims if it gives them an edge. A 2015 study found that misinformation is highest for issues “on which elites prominently and persistently [make] incorrect claims.” If only a few people are misinformed on an issue, it could be dismissed as the work of oddballs. It takes a gang to hoodwink a nation. Misinformation on the scale of recent years is unprecedented. And it couldn’t have happened without help from the news media. Rather than take responsibility for the facts, journalists strive for “balance” — giving each side a chance to make its case. It’s a sensible approach in many situations and protects journalists from accusations of bias. Yet the approach breaks down when one side is making things up. Balanced reporting then devolves into what the Atlantic’s James Fallows calls “false equivalencies” — the side-by-side presentation of statements that differ wildly in their factual integrity. When a politician tells a bold-faced lie, and the press reports it, the press is complicit in the deception; the claim gets publicized and gains credibility from appearing in the news. Is it possible to institutionalize misinformation? Are there ways through policy to entrench it? In 1987, the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) unwittingly did so. It revoked the “fairness doctrine.” That policy discouraged the airing of partisan talk shows by requiring stations to offer a balanced lineup of liberal and conservative programs. After it was gone hundreds of radio stations shifted to partisan talk shows, most of which had a conservative slant. Within a few years, the highest-rated program, “The Rush Limbaugh Show,” hosted by a former radio shock jock, had millions of weekly listeners. “The Internet is an extraordinary advance. It has changed our lives in positive ways, giving us a level of access to information that was unimaginable a few decades ago. Yet mixed in with the Internet’s reliable content is misinformation, so many shades of it that it would put a lipstick counter to shame.” Limbaugh’s success led Rupert Murdoch to start Fox News. To run it, he hired Republican political consultant Roger Ailes, who scheduled partisan talk shows in prime time. Other cable outlets followed with prime-time shows of their own. The combined radio and television partisan talk show audience now exceeds 50 million weekly listeners. On some of these programs, listeners are fed a distorted version of truth. To sell it, hosts claim to be wiser than just about anyone. Others lie, they say, but I will give you the truth. Facts are not to be trusted, they say, unless you hear them from me. Limbaugh told his listeners to stop following traditional news outlets. “I’ll let you know what they’re up to,” he said. Rachel Maddow prefaces many of her attacks with “This is not personal,” implying that it’s truth rather than her opinion that the viewer is about to hear. When Trump launched cruise missiles in response to Syria’s use of chemical weapons, Maddow’s “This is not personal” claim was that Trump was trying to divert attention from the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. “Even if the tail is wagging the dog,” she said, “even if this decision was taken with absolutely no regard for whatever else is going on in the President’s life right now [it] unavoidably creates a real perception around the globe that, that may have been a part of the motivation.” Partisan talk show hosts traffic in outrage, seeking to convince their listeners that the other party is hell-bent on destroying America. On that score, there is not much difference between conservative and liberal hosts. Sarah Sobieraj, coauthor of “The Outrage Industry,” notes that “their political ideologies are different, but the way they speak, the types of images they use, their techniques of belittling people, of name calling, of character assassination, are similar.” The Internet is an extraordinary advance. It has changed our lives in positive ways, giving us a level of access to information that was unimaginable a few decades ago. Yet mixed in with the Internet’s reliable content is misinformation, so many shades of it that it would put a lipstick counter to shame. The Internet allows anyone with the time and interest to be a reporter, editor, and publisher, as well as a self-declared expert. Every second of every day, someone is pumping misinformation into the Internet, out of carelessness, stupidity, greed, or malice. Outrage is a big draw, getting far more shares and “likes” than does reasoned argument. The result is a flood of misinformation, much of it presented with the self-righteousness of a Sadducee. Every wacky idea imaginable can be found on the Internet. You probably weren’t aware that Sen. Mitch McConnell funneled Russian cash to Donald Trump or that Edward Snowden was part of a years-long Russian plot to torpedo Hillary Clinton’s presidential ambitions or that Andrew Breitbart was murdered by Vladimir Putin in order to put Steve Bannon in charge of Breitbart News. Well, it’s all there on the Internet, located on sites operated by extreme left-wingers. |