On the same day devastating wildfires broke out in the Los Angeles area, Meta, the world’s largest social media company and owner of Facebook, Threads and Instagram, announced an end to its fact-checking program.
As the fires raged, so did rumors and partisan outrage. With credible information critical to saving lives, Americans who turned to their favorite social media apps for breaking news instead found false claims that the fires were set by eco-terrorists or that diversity measures were to blame. AI-generated content spread shocking false images, like one depicting the Hollywood sign in flames.
All this occurred before the changes at Meta had even taken effect. The next natural disaster or national breaking news event will surely follow a well-worn pattern of lies, AI-slop and partisan posts that appeal to our biases and further divide us. With the elimination of even modest fact-checking efforts on these massively popular social media platforms, it will be even harder to make sense of it all. Chances are, we’ll once again retreat to our filter bubbles and our preferred, and often biased, sources of information.
The fallout from this dysfunctional virtual world impacts our real lives. During a major news event, officials now must spend valuable time and resources debunking rumors.
To break through the falsehoods and distortions, we need to think like a journalist. All reputable reporters follow some version of these seven standards: they rely on multiple credible sources, avoid bias, provide documentation to support claims, ensure fairness of coverage, verify facts before sharing them, consider relevant context and strive for balance while avoiding false equivalencies.
As news consumers, we too can apply these same standards to evaluate whether to trust the information we consume and break out of our echo chambers.
At the News Literacy Project, where I’m president and CEO, we call these the standards of quality journalism, and they are the yardstick for teaching students how to measure whether a source is credible, a fundamental news literacy skill.
We recognize journalism is not perfect. But teaching students the highest ideals and practices of the profession gives them — and all of us — a framework for evaluating all news and information.
When a disaster strikes, journalists will verify where to find sandbags or clean water before publishing their news story. They’ll confirm the official number of injured or dead. When it’s time for recovery efforts to begin, reporters will seek out multiple viewpoints — from experts to local residents — for insights on how to move forward. And if they make mistakes in their reporting along the way, standards-based news organizations and reporters issue a correction.
So, before you decide to re-share a post on social media, pause to check whether the claim has been verified. Take stock of the sources you rely on and determine whether they simply reinforce your beliefs or broaden your perspective with differing viewpoints.
When journalists hold officials accountable, they ask for comment from the person or agency that’s under fire, giving them an opportunity to provide important context or facts. Next time you read a news story, ask yourself: Whose voice is missing and has everyone been given a chance to defend their position?
Admittedly, avoiding bias can be one of the most challenging standards to meet for news organizations and news consumers alike. We should hold our information sources accountable when they fall short by contacting the reporter, writing letters to the editor or posting concerns in story comments online.
We need to hold ourselves accountable, too. Our information habits have left us without a shared understanding of what’s gone wrong or how to fix it, feeding our biases and leaving no room for consensus. This clears the way for scammers to thrive and rumors to take root.
We all have a role to play in cleaning up our information environment, and doing so doesn’t have to be complicated or time consuming. We can rely on the standards of quality journalism to decide what information to trust, ensure that we’re not contributing to the swirl of online falsehoods and check our own biases when seeking out news and information.
Charles Salter is president and CEO of the News Literacy Project, a nonpartisan education nonprofit that works with educators, school districts and states to ensure students receive news literacy instruction before they graduate high school.
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