What is the media?
Is it longstanding traditional news outlets such as newspapers and television, or is it the blog of your neighbor who chronicles the world from his or her perspective? Is it websites owned and operated by journalists, or can it be the voice and claims of an otherwise average citizen amplified through the power of social media?
Yes, yes and yes.
The airwaves and printing presses once dominated the news production sphere. In this day and age, though, everyone has a potential publishing platform right at their fingertips in the form of smartphones and the internet, even if they don’t hold themselves to the same high standards of traditional news outlets.
It’s an era that has brought unprecedented access to information. While there is power in this reality, there are also dangers, as we’ve seen a raging debate unfold over the use of the words “fake news.”
President-elect Donald Trump affixed those words to outlets such as BuzzFeed and CNN this week, lambasting them for publication of an unsourced, unverified and likely untrue collection of sordid claims meant to undercut Trump’s reputation.
His anger was understandable, but the “fake news” allegation is a heavy one. Without launching into a discussion on the merits of that specific story, it’s a good chance to consider “fake news” as a cultural phenomena.
If we inadvertently or intentionally start calling honest attempts at journalism fake, we lump them in with organizations truly deserving of that description.
There are hundreds of internet outfits that unapologetically spread false claims, accusations and, frankly, informational garbage that acts only to confuse and mislead readers while enriching the seedy organizations that publish it.
Other forms of information are also susceptible to the “fake news” tag, though they aren’t always deserving.
For instance, there’s an outfit in Lewis County that sells seemingly factual stories about businesses and then publishes them without letting readers know they’re essentially advertisements.
It’s known as paid content in the business, and it includes things like native advertising and sponsored stories. It’s information meant to look like news, but isn’t.
There’s nothing wrong with that model so long as readers are informed of the nature of the content, per the requirements of the Federal Communications Commission, but it can be confusing for news consumers.
Opinion pages often include claims that those with competing viewpoints would define as false, but commentaries and editorials are expressions of personal perspectives, not “fake news.”
So what is news? From our perspective, it’s unbiased, verified information produced by a professional gatherer of facts and context.
It’s not always perfect. Humans are prone to making errors, and journalists are as human as anyone else, but it is honest in its attempts to be fair and correct, with efforts to verify when necessary.
At a time when there is confusion on what merits honest news, it’s worth stating The Chronicle will continue as it has for 127 years, producing fair journalism even amid occasionally contentious issues that provoke strong opinions.
We’ll do so with the area’s largest team of professional journalists, who wake up each morning with a single goal in mind — providing information you can be confident is real.
