GARDEN ROUTE | KAROO  NEWS - “A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on.” - Anonymous

I recently received a WhatsApp from a friend, imploring me to “copy this link to all your contacts”. I read the link, which was written, apparently, by an unnamed nurse who said that having a nation vaccinated was akin to genocide.

In my years in journalism, I have often received such declarations couched as ‘tips’. And there has been an explosion of these tips in the last decade with social media so prevalent in our lives.

We are all quite defenseless if we are not media literate. Without media literacy, we are ripe for manipulation, and even worse, guilty ourselves of spreading fake news. 

So how does one become media literate, and more importantly, how do we spot fake news?

First of all, there are a number of classifications of fake news: 

1. Misinformation. This happens when someone publishes information that is not fully correct. We see it all the time in journalism these days, unfortunately. Perhaps the full story is not told and we are not given the other parties’ viewpoints. Maybe there is an error in the writing of the story, or a typo, in which 30% becomes 300%. Misinformation is not intentional.

2. Disinformation. This implies a deliberate attempt to mislead. I see it in opinion pieces, ‘spin’ pieces from public relation firms, letters to the editor in which crucial information is withheld, leaving the wrong impression. Some of our national newspapers have also been charged with deliberately creating disinformation, or even malinformation. The Sunday Times has been in hot water for this reason a few times recently.

3. Malinformation. This is also deliberate, but with a malicious intent. It is created to scaremonger, or sway public opinion.

I was shocked to recently discover that dis- and malinformation is created on a grand scale. The economically depressed region of Macedonia has become more affluent since 2016, thanks to their ‘fake-news factory’. If one googles ‘fake news factory Macedonia’, there are a number of very credible sources that have produced print and visual stories on the subject, in which people, mostly teenagers, have been seduced by money to create ‘fairy tales’ as The Atlantic coined it. It is thought that this group of people influenced the last two American elections. There is no malice; the political motivation and malice come from those people making the payments.

So how can we protect ourselves and ensure that our opinions are not being manipulated by someone on the other side of the world with an agenda? 

1. When someone sends you a link, look at the source. A recent video that was doing the rounds claimed that as ‘the government’ didn’t really know anything about vaccinations, we should not be subjecting ourselves to them. The voice over was American, male. No source. No indication of which government. American? South African? Under Trump? Biden? I looked at some tiny script in the corner of one shot and blew it up. There was a name on it and indicated that it was from YouTube. I googled the name and discovered this person is an American conspiracy theorist with 59 supporters - not even a very convincing conspiracy theorist, evidently. Source is paramount is uncovering veracity, both the source of the link and the sources quoted.

2. Sometimes sources are named, but they are fraudulent. Do a quick check to see if that’s the kind of thing Joe Biden has said, for instance. When we read only the headlines, we are primed for this kind of fake news. Headlines are often misleading as they are an attempt to attract readers/viewers, but are often NOT the true or full story. Other times, sources may be taken out of context and people are quoted only partially, i.e. “I do agree with the government’s position. However, they did not have the latest information when that statement was made.” Many a fake-news spreader (or unethical editor) has used the first sentence without the qualifier.

3. Think about what motive someone would have for posting information. Are they trying to de-stabilize a government? Is it mischief? Is there money involved? We received a hot story on a news program I was involved with. Seemed correct, verifiable. Then we looked into the potential motives of the source. It was only after quite a thorough investigation that we discovered he would be in for a stock market windfall if we ran with the story. Motive is all important in determining whether a source can be trusted.

4. Get your information from more than one source, and get reputable information. Whatsapp and Facebook, for example, do have reliable sources, but they also have a plethora of fake news. If something catches your eye and you wonder about its truth, see if credible news sources carry the same story.

5. I was drawn into a story the other day that seemed to have a tinge of unreality. It was a good source, but nothing about it seemed correct. I checked the date. It had been written two years ago, before Covid, and was no longer true or relevant.

6. It’s a common phenomenon that our own biases affect how we perceive information. If you distrust the government, for example, you will be drawn to those sorts of stories. Sometimes our biases lead us astray; we WANT to believe a certain story because it is aligned with what we believe anyway. We must be aware of the biases of the sources we read regularly.

There are a number of places to fact check news. Associated Press is a good place to go for international news. Google AP news fact check, or alternatively factcheck.org for American news. In the UK there is fullfact.org and locally, there is africacheck.org. You can also Google “media bias” and “fact check”. When searching for a fact checking source, try to ascertain how they are funded. A lot of medical information disseminated is funded by big pharmaceuticals, and may be a bit suspect.

Susan Stos is a journalist and owner of APPLY Ethics (stos@iafrica.com)

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