Black, White, and Read All OverMEDIA AS A
BY HARRISON BERRY
Meanwhile, misinformation and so-called fake news spread faster than news sources can fact check–often with the blessing of social media algorithms, says Kyle Moody, an associate professor of communications media at Fitchburg State University. “A false claim presented as such spreads faster due to the nature and appeal of social media,” he explains. “By the time it’s been fact-checked, it’s already been widely disseminated.” In the fall of 2021, Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee, blew the whistle on the social media giant’s content promotion practices, which have included incentivizing and spreading angry, polarizing, and divisive posts about hot-button issues like the 2020 election, the QAnon conspiracy theory, and COVID-19. Facebook, which holds more than 72% of the global market share of social media, has long been under scrutiny over the algorithm it uses to promote users’ posts. Haugen’s testimony revealed what many suspected, that the social media giant had privileged its financial interests over the information needs of its users, steadily feeding them blistering outrage and outright misinformation to keep up impressions, likes, comments, and shares. The purveyors of misinformation and many journalists have something in common, according to Moody. They may be engaging in a kind of online echolocation. Even trained reporters may use social media to project their political or social identities, attract sympathizers, or troll those who disagree, but the overall effects have been information silos and bitter political division.
Squid Game
Idaho Capital Sun Editor-in-Chief Christina Lords has one of the strongest resumes of any journalist in Idaho, having worked at some of the Gem State’s most prominent newspapers. Hate mail has always come with the job, but helming a nonprofit newsroom has increased the intensity of the vitriol aimed at her inbox. “I’d sit in front of my computer and take a few deep breaths and say that whatever’s in my inbox is not a reflection of me as a person,” says Lords. “I’ve had to accept constructive criticism and take in what’s legitimate and disregard the trolls who show up in my voicemail and inbox. Especially at the beginning of the pandemic, it was pretty rough.” The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened old tensions and added new tensions. People’s hackles have been raised by what they see and hear in the news and from one another, and while people being polarized by the media is an old problem, its incarnation in the age of social media has taken the intensity to new heights. Algorithms privilege content that incites viewers’ emotions and instills an us-versus-them mentality. Anti-civility has become an accepted call to action, and the purveyors of true stories and verified facts have become the targets of harassment and attack. Online aggression doesn’t get Lords down. Her newsroom is one of a crop of nonprofit and small-scale independent news outlets that have broken away from the common business and editorial practices that support journalism and may be the surest signs that straight, sharp reporting is not lost. 36
The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened old tensions and added new tensions. The journalist-as-popular-figure is nothing new, but social media has deepened the potential ethical hazards of journalists developing or cashing in on their own brands. In 2021, numerous reporters from a slew of national and international news organizations were fired for their pro-Palestinian tweets, and The New York Times came under fire for terminating the employment of an editor who tweeted about having “chills” when President Joe Biden arrived in Washington, D.C., for his inauguration.
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