Horowitz: The American Public Believes that Made-up News is a Big Problem

Horowitz: The American Public Believes that Made-up News is a Big Problem

One-in-two Americans believe that "made-up" news and information is a very big problem facing the country, exceeding the number of Americans who believe climate change, terrorism and racism are very big problems, according to a recently released Pew Research Center national survey.  This growing perception is fueled in part by the fact that a substantial majority of Americans now say they sometimes or often encounter made-up news, more popularly known as fake news.

Americans recognize that the widespread circulation of deliberately false information is a ‘threat to our democracy.”  More than 2-in-3 Americans say that “made-up news and information" has a big impact on confidence in government; more than 1-in-2 say it has a big impact on Americans confidence in each other as well as political leaders’ ability to get work done.

One encouraging result in the survey is that President Trump has failed to persuade the broad general public that journalists are the prime source of fake news, despite his persistent efforts to do so.  Americans by and large reject his reckless attempts to label any media coverage that reflects negatively on him as “fake news" no matter how accurate.   As the Pew poll summary states, “U.S. adults blame political leaders and activists far more than journalists for the creation of made-up news intended to mislead the public.”

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Not surprising, the one sub-group of the public that President Trump’s blatantly false, misleading attacks on reporters have worked with is self-identified Republicans who are 3 times as likely as self-identified Democrats to say that journalists are the prime source of made-up news.   Republicans have traditionally been more skeptical of the media than the rest of the electorate, making them more receptive to the president’s message.

While Americans believe that politicians and activists are the sources of most deliberate misinformation, a majority still believes that journalists have the greatest responsibility to correct it.  Americans accurately sense that journalism with all its imperfections remains the best vehicle to sort out fact from fiction.

And in another encouraging sign, Americans themselves are becoming more discerning consumers of news, increasingly doing their own fact-checking. “Almost eight-in-ten (78%) say they have checked the facts in news stories themselves. Roughly six-in-ten (63%) have stopped getting news from a particular outlet, about half (52%) have changed the way they use social media,” Pew states.

This is a problem that will lessen, but not go away with the end of the Trump presidency.   It is the case that President Trump is by far the chief purveyor of made-up news in our nation, having already put forward more than 10,000 false and misleading statements, according to the Washington Post’s expert fact-checker Glenn Kessler.  Our wild-west of news and information, however, where information spreads quickly without the gatekeeping of the old mass media age, will continue and perhaps even accelerate.

As a result, it will increasingly be up to each of us to be our own fact-checkers, becoming discerning consumers of news and information. That plus supporting quality journalism are the essential ingredients required to make what Oliver Holmes famously called "the marketplace of ideas” one that works to inform us and nourish--not threaten--democracy.

Rob Horowitz is a strategic and communications consultant who provides general consulting, public relations, direct mail services and polling for national and state issue organizations, various non-profits and elected officials and candidates. He is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island