WHAT IS REALLY FAKE NEWS?

Amid non-stop, blanket coverage of the November election, little-noticed articles appeared in the mainstream press that beautifully capture what “fake news” really is.

The articles, one of which you can access here, explores a growing phenomenon underway in American suburbs and small towns : pay-to-play news. That is, if you want news coverage as a political candidate, a business, or just as an individual, all you have to do is pay for it. Crucially, this arrangement is hidden from readers; there is no mention anywhere that the stories people are reading are the result of pay-to-play arrangements.

Lest you think this is a passing phenomenon, the articles point out that so far, these fake news sources are expanding in leaps and bounds, generating huge profits for their owners, while presenting readers with a cynically false take on what constitutes verifiable, professional news content.

SHOULD I WORRY ABOUT THIS?

Surely, this is a problem if you believe in the idea of a free and open press as a bulwark of democracy. Or is it? The counter-argument, one that is gaining traction in a deeply divided nation, is that free expression literally means content cannot be suppressed, exposed as fraudulent, or labeled as propaganda.

I don’t buy it, and you shouldn’t either. Taken to its logical conclusion, this point of view would totally upend civic discourse, making it exceedingly difficult for citizens to sort out truth — objective reality — from blatant falsehood.

This is not a problem confined only to fake newspapers. Actually, the situation is much worse on radio, television and social media platforms, in significant part because of a concerted pushback by partisan propagandists who mostly occupy the far right end of the political spectrum. On the one hand, fake news gin mills (and foreign-operated disinformation agencies) are flooding social media platforms with — literally — garbage. On the other, a radical right wing effort is underway to restrain what they believe is a built-in liberal content bias with overtly partisan, highly conservative information in the guise of news. (Here is a representative example from broadcast media).

Fake news, I believe, is a symptom of a much deeper and ominous trend — the rise of an “alternate reality” currently being advanced by the Trump Administration and its more extreme followers (QAnon and OAN News, to name two). The idea is that if you can’t abide by the truth, change it.

You’ve heard this before if you’ve read “1984. or the history of Nazism. It’s called the “Big Lie.” So if people can be convinced that 220,000 men, women and children actually did not succumb to COVID, or that vaccination against communicable disease is a “deep state” plot, then you’ve created an alternate reality of what is.

IS THERE A FIX TO RESTORE SOCIETAL TRUST?

Yes, I believe there is.

“We are challenged as never before to restore a measured, logical and valid intervention in or media and communications environment to save ourselves from self-destruction.

The best way to achieve this goal is to resurrect a decades-old notion that the conflict of ideas will most closely generate the truth, defined as objective reality, while cementing the truth as the ultimate goal of civil discourse.“

This is not solely my idea. But it is a thought that has been bubbling around for years, and has now become an even more urgent matter with the growth of not just propaganda, but also also false narratives, unhinged conspiracy theories and partisan-inspired “messaging campaigns” that are intentionally misleading.

DUELING INFORMATION

The concept of dueling information is pretty simple: provide — in fact, require (in certain situations) — that content providers offer simultaneous, concurrent access to information that counters, explains, or gives background to extreme, offensive, false or highly partisan content.

Yup, this opens a whole new can of worms, as I readily concede. (I can hear the howling already). But I truly believe this is an elegant solution to a growing and dangerous trend.

Step One: re-establish the Fairness Doctrine for broadcast media (radio and television) to insure that all sides in controversial or important public issues are heard. The Doctrine was in effect from 1949 until 2011, when it was killed by conservative Republicans and commentators (Rush Limbaugh) who asserted that having to offer competing views would destroy their ability — and profitability — to disseminate of unfettered, biased, one-sided right wing diatribes.

Step Two: enlarge the Fairness Doctrine to include social media platforms that are the largest purveyors of content in today’s connected environment. For example, Facebook could continue to post all sorts of unverified information, just as long as it balanced that content with corresponding links to opposing views. (In fact, Facebook is already doing this to curb the excesses of the antivaxxer movement); it has the resources and know-how to expand this counter-information effort broadly.

Step Three: Congress should create new regulations governing non-profit, tax exempt 501(c) 4 “social welfare” entities. These organizations are abusing their non-profit status by actively soliciting anonymous contributions for openly political causes. This is not free speech as intended by the Founding Fathers, but rather a license to pollute the political process.

Do these solutions address the matter I began this post with: the pay-for-play newspapers? Well, not directly. For that to happen, the legitimate free press must continue to rely upon what’s always been its most important weapon — the spotlight. Just remember, I got wind of this subterfuge thanks to the mainstream news media, which published articles about the pay-for-play news sites.

It’s an example of free press executing its finest and most critical role: exposing what people try to hide and don’t want you to know.

The reforms outlined above won’t by themselves cure the problem of hyper-partisan, unrestrained content using free speech as a shield. But there is no need to abolish that shield, Rather, we must counterbalance it with the spear of truth.