Seeking truth in a landslide of e-facts
W hen I met with Iowa State journalism students earlier this month one theme kept coming up. In a world awash in information, how do you sort out the real from the fake? How do you get to the truth amidst propaganda and lies that are so prevalent on the Internet and elsewhere?
The question of authenticity in a spinning world confronts this generation of young journalists in ways my generation never saw coming. These 18- to 21-year-olds are the first to grow up entirely in an Internet world, and they have become incredibly proficient at gathering information from 360 degrees.
The good news: Nothing is accepted at face value – good traits to have as a journalist. The bad news: Older-adult role models haven’t exactly shone.
“I think my generation knows how to use the Internet well, and we also know that the information on it is so much more worthwhile if it’s verified by a real person,” Josh Hillman, 20, editorial page editor of the Iowa State Collegian told me.
“As far as authenticity and politicians go, I think young people see the Internet (as) much more authentic than any politician in general,” said Hillman, from Cedar Rapids. “Since I’ve started paying attention to politics I’ve seen two presidents (Bill Clinton and George W. Bush), both who have had pretty neat definitions with what they consider truthful. … How can I believe that these 2008 (presidential candidates) are authentic when the two most prominent politicians in the last 16 years have been marked with a severe lack of truth?”
When my post-Watergate generation was in journalism school in the mid-‘70s the Walter Cronkite factor still ruled. A few dominant, authoritative outlets – a universe that probably included your choice of three nightly TV news programs and your hometown newspaper – set the agenda. Politicians in the pre-Watergate era were generally trusted to do the right thing. Now in a post-it and PhotoShop world, illusion and falsehoods co-mingle on the same vast plane with authority and truth.
That’s why authenticity will be a key component of the 2008 presidential campaign. In an election full of pressing issues, the winner may be the candidate that breaks through with the biggest sense of being true to himself, or to herself.
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, who with Brooks Jackson co-authored “unSpun: Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation,” said the newest generation of American adults comes of age in a worrisome confluence of intense political polarization, increasing media partisanship and bewildering information choices.
“This world is much more difficult to navigate unless you default to partisanship,” said Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. “We have polarized political parties, we have a polarized Congress, and now we have a polarized media, and you don’t automatically know where you stand in regards to all of it.”
In their new book, Jackson and Hall Jamieson have nine rules on how to cut through the clutter:
1. “You can’t be certain enough.” Or as Ronald Reagan said, “trust but verify.”
2. “You can be certain enough.” “Beyond a reasonable doubt” may be good for courtrooms, but it may be an impossible standard for everyday life. “Be as certain as you need to be.”
3. “Look for general agreement among experts.” But remember that consensus is not always proof. There was once consensus that the Earth was flat.
4. “Check primary sources.” This might be called the “horse’s mouth rule.”
5. “Know what counts.” Numbers can lie. My political pet peeve: Politicians, and their journalist enablers, who portray a proposed 5 percent increase, as opposed to a proposed 7 percent increase, as a 2 percent cut.
6. “Know who’s talking.” The Committee to Protect All Things Good and Wonderful might be a front for something not so good and wonderful.
7. “Seeing shouldn’t necessarily be believing.” Two people can see the same thing differently.
8. “Cross-check everything that matters.”
9. “Be skeptical but not cynical.” This may be the hardest rule of all.