Journalists tend to "regard the statement "X said A" as a "fact," even if "A" is false." (See e.g. 'dirty bomb', '102 MPs')
Starting my remarks at #DISINFO2022 on why news media sometimes can end up disseminating disinfo with a quote from Gaye Tuchman journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.108… 1/6
Starting my remarks at #DISINFO2022 on why news media sometimes can end up disseminating disinfo with a quote from Gaye Tuchman journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.108… 1/6
Beyond inadverdently disseminating disinfo bcs of business-as-usual editorial practices, there are also parts of the media (e.g. some pundits, broadcast hosts) who are parts of what @sobieraj called "outrage industry" - even when working for news media global.oup.com/academic/produ… 2/6
Whether as sources (for news reporters), guests/subjects (for hosts and pundits), or important users and advertiseres (for platforms) - or just doing their own thing - some domestic political elites sometimes contribute to mis- and disinfo problems academic.oup.com/book/26406 3/6
And while many studies find news demonstrably help people understand the world better, at the same time also the case that "mainstream news media in fact play a significant and important role in the dissemination of fake news", as Tsfati et al argues doi.org/10.1080/238089… 4/6
Real problems online, esp. on social, journalqd.org/article/view/3… but, as @_JenAllen et al argues, “origins of public misinformedness [are] more likely to lie in the content of ordinary news or the avoidance of news altogether [than] in overt fake news.” advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/14/e… 5/6
It's uncomfortable and unwelcome to recognize that - in addition to digital platforms + foreign actors - domestic news media and political elites sometimes play an important role in disinfo problems. But they do. And we can't address problems if we refuse to understand them. 6/6
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