A public relations agency called Greentarget recently released a study called “Fake News 2020” in which the agency surveyed over 100 journalists in order to get their thoughts on how misinformation has affected their profession.
IU Media School alumna Lisa Seidenberg was one of the researchers who conducted the study.
While one in four journalists believed President Trump has had “an extremely negative effect” on journalism, they also believed that distrust towards news media has been around long before his administration… and they don’t see it changing anytime soon.
Less than half of respondents signaled optimism about the future of their profession under a Biden administration.
Seidenberg says she was inspired to conduct the study after attending a panel discussion event sponsored by IU’s Chicago Alumni Association called “Preserving the Truth in an Age of Misinformation” where a panel of journalists discussed how fake news has damaged the credibility of news media.
Lisa Seidenberg on the inspiration behind “Fake News 2020”: she says the idea came from a IU alumni panel discussion event called “Preserving the Truth in an Age of Misinformation.”
The study revealed that misinformation and attacks on journalists aren’t only coming from politicians. In fact, the majority of the journalists surveyed believed that social media was the biggest culprit in the spread of fake news.
“56% of them actually said that it was social media seen as the bigger problem as far as distributing fake news compared to 19% who pointed to weaponizing of the media by politicians,” Seidenberg said.
We spoke to several IU students about where they get their news and they seemed to agree that social media is one of the most prominent sources of misinformation.
You can test your ability to spot fake news by taking this quiz where you can determine if images of real social media content were posted by a legitimate account or a “troll” account.
IU freshman Henry Otts, Max Mccollom, and Riley Bender on whether or not they trust social media when looking for news.
Seidenberg says she believes mending the distrust between the public and news media will require better education on media literacy.
“I think that professors both at the college level and teachers at the high school level really need to help the younger generation understand how you can spot the difference between a real story and a fake story so that they’re not the ones when they see something who are just automatically passing it along to their friends and thinking that this is actually a credible source,” Seidenberg said.
Greentarget has partnered with Perspectives Charter Schools in Chicago to offer a class on media literacy starting in 2021.
For more information about Greentarget, you can visit greentarget.com.
