This News Just In: Fake Or Mistake

By Sydney Hauer

From the moment the inauguration took place, President Donald Trump has been at war with the media.

According to Scott Peters, associate professor of political science at the University of Northern Iowa, the whole idea of fake news in America was fabricated by President Trump because he doesn’t like how the media reports about him, even though the information is reported accurately.

“Trump has successfully co-opted the label for fake news and he has done it in amazingly quickly,” Peters said. He discussed how the term originated from Russia, who had actually been systematically generating fake news stories in an attempt to manipulate social media. The goal was to help endorse more nationalistic candidates; those who line up with Putin’s ideology.

“Trump has been able to take that label of fake news and apply it to any coverage that is critical of him. And his supporters have adopted the same language, so he has basically co-opted the whole idea of fake news.”

In his first press conference after being inaugurated, Trump stated that CNN is a terrible organization, and wouldn’t allow a reporter from CNN to ask a question. He barred certain news organizations from being allowed into White House press conferences.

After calling the media "the enemy of the American people" during his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, President Trump claimed that if mainstream news organizations would always attribute their sources, that would make them far more credible.

“...Always having sources on the record;  in an ideal world that’s true, but it’s also true that there are major, major stories that would’ve never been uncovered if people had to go on the record,” said Peters. “This is why I think journalism has developed different norms about how you deal with …  anonymous uncredited sources. Typically you have to have multiple sources, they need to be verified in different ways, they need to be verifiable against things that are on the record or records that are available in some way.”

Peters explained that although it is practical and necessary that some sources stay unattributed, he believes that journalists should push harder to have sources go on the record for more low level stories that are less controversial.

“It gives his followers or supporters permission to ignore the story. It’s fake news; you don’t have to pay any attention to that. And then you don’t even have to counter it; you don’t have to engage with it or critique it or analyze why it’s wrong- it’s just fake, you don’t have to say anything about it,” said Peters.

He said that because Trump is saying the news is “fake”, that the public can be dismissive of it. He believes that Trump has convinced his supporters that he is the one who holds the true narrative, and much of what the media outlets report, especially about him, is false.

“People with a commitment to telling the truth and to being as accurate as possible are extraordinarily sensitive to being biased because they want to tell the truth,” said Ana Kogl, professor of political theory at the University of Northern Iowa. “Somebody with a good journalistic ethic wants to tell the truth. They don’t actually want to manipulate people; they don’t actually want to slant. You have a commitment to being a journalist because you want people to have the real information.”

She believes that some of the stances Trump holds appear anti-democratic, because people who believe in democracy advocate for free speech, want people to have information and the freedom to make their own choices about that information.

While attacking the media as a whole, Trump has been especially harsh towards major media outlets whose ideology doesn’t quite line up with his, such as the New York Times, CNN, and the Washington Post. All of these organizations are reputable, and have one goal in mind: to get factual information out to the public.

Clay Masters is a reporter at Iowa Public Radio and the host of the morning news program, Morning Edition.

“Ever since President Donald Trump began running for the office he has made the media out to be dishonest and untrustworthy. His speeches, while he was campaigning in Iowa, even featured a regular moment where he would lambast those media members covering his events. He would encourage the crowd to “boo” and jeer the press,” Masters explained. “This was a way that he could get his supporters to blindly disregard whatever was being reported about him and it is still a tactic he uses as president. It makes it a challenge for reporters, like myself, to cover the news, but it also makes it even more important to be an unbiased journalist. I don’t ever participate in primary elections or discuss who I personally support in an election. It’s important to not let your opinion guide how you report the facts, especially in today’s society where social media is so widely used and viewed. It’s easier to gain trust from sources (from high level politicians down to the general public) by having an unbiased viewpoint and being able to honestly stand by.”

“I would say it creates an aura of distrust between the media and the public, which only further feeds into the perceived disconnect between the American people and the establishment that Trump played up so well,” said Clinton Olsasky, junior at University of Northern Iowa majoring in digital journalism. He is also the executive editor of the campus newspaper, the Northern Iowan.

Now, there is a notable difference between news that is fake and news stories that accidently contain mistakes.

An example of a critical mistake was when NPR falsely reported the death of Gabrielle Giffords back in 2011 after she had been shot at an event in Arizona. Word traveled quickly, with multiple reporters confirming the information that she had died.

NPR had not meant to report false information and proceeded to correct it.

“While NPR made a significant mistake that dinged its credibility, it should be commended for quickly apologizing and being transparent. Rather than hurting NPR’s credibility, taking responsibility for the mistake should enhance it,” NPR reporter Alicia Shepard wrote in an article written a week after the incident.

 

Peters thinks that many people don’t read news as closely as they should. He used the articles about Trump colluding with Russia as an example.

“People aren’t reading those stories closely. People are inferring connections that actually haven’t been demonstrated yet and might not exist.”

News outlets reporting on the story were not stating that this was a proven fact. They were shedding potential information and clues, but hadn’t declared Trump’s involvement with Russia as true or untrue.

“News outlets get stuff wrong all the time,” Peters said. “Usually it’s minor details. You can look at the correction page of the New York Times on any given day and you’ll see some things there.”

“If there's any possible positive affect from it, which there's not, I would say this aura of distrust forces journalists to work that much harder and be that much better in order to re-establish that broken trust with the people,” said Olsasky.