How SoCJ Experts Are Helping Find the Truth in a Sea of Misinformation

Every day, news consumers get bombarded by a disorienting stream of information, misinformation and disinformation. On the eve of the 2024 presidential election, it's never been more challenging - or important- to separate fact from fiction and find reliable news sources.

The Stony Brook University School of Communication and Journalism's (SoCJ) Center for News Literacy hosted "2024 Election: Making Sense of the News," on September 23, with tips on navigating the modern news cycle.

"We are living through the most profound communication revolution in 500 years, and the way the ecosystem works, a small post on Facebook in an obscure Ohio community can become part of the national debate within days," said the center's executive director Howard Schneider, referring to false reports of Haitians eating cats and dogs."How does that happen? It's an indication of the world we're living in."

Schneider said the rise of social media has played a big part in the dissemination of misinformation, citingan example concerning the opening of a Houston mosque and library in 2016.

"There was a Facebook group called 'Heart of Texas' which had thousands of members and alerted its members to go downtown and to object, protest and even bring their guns," he said. "Another Facebook group called 'United Muslims in America,' that also had thousands of members, urged a counterprotest."

Howard Schneider

Schneider then revealed a surprising fact: Heart of Texas was not run by anybody in Texas, and United Muslims of America was not run by Muslims.

"Russia was running both groups from 5,000 miles away," said Schneider. "Yet there were crowds that came downtown and faced off against each other, with police between them. The posts were among thousands of bogus Russian posts in the run-up to the election that sought to divide Americans on gun control, abortion race, and immigration on Facebook, where about 40 percent of adults get their news. And unsuspecting Americans acted on the information."

Schneider said the biggest problem isn't foreign interference via social media, but a common trap many of us fall into every day.

"In the three months before the [2016] election, more Americans were consuming, reading and sharing fake stories as they were about to vote for the most powerful person in the country," he said, citing a BuzzFeed News study on popular stories on Facebook. "These were not people who were attempting to purposely mislead. These were people like you and me. They were either acting very quickly or emotionally, because they were partisans, or they had no idea how to separate fake news from real news."

Schneider said only a small number of 'bad actors' intentionally create disinformation. "Those are the people intending to fool you and mislead you," he said. "That's 'disinformation.' The rest of us share it. That's misinformation."

Schneider offered five common challenges we all have, no matter how you get your news.

1. Information overload
2. Speed vs. accuracy
3. Journalism vs. information masquerading as journalism
4. The challenge of authenticity
5. Overcoming our own biases

Jonathan Anzalone

"Technology is not going to save us," said Schneider. "There are three billion people on Facebook every day. How can you police that? Not to mention First Amendment issues and legitimate issues about free speech. And now we have the additional challenge of AI-generated content."

Unfortunately, said Schneider, traditional journalism also is not going to save us.

"Two newspapers close every week in America," he said. "Half the counties in America have one newspaper or no newspapers. The internet has totally disrupted the economic model which has supported independent journalism for 150 years. So now we have fewer journalists and fewer people filtering the news for us. Where there are no filters, there's a vacuum, and fake news sites are filling the vacuum."

The solution, said Schneider, is cultivating smarter, more discerning news consumers.

To that end, the Center for News Literacy pioneered the nation's first college course in News Literacy in 2007. Since then, it has taught its three-credit course to more than 11,000 Stony Brook undergraduates, shared its curriculum with several dozen colleges in the U.S. and overseas, and is working with local school districts to embed news literacy into their required curriculum, in some cases as early as kindergarten. The center also co-developed a free online course Called "Making Sense of the News" on the educational platform Coursera.

"We need to remind ourselves not to be passive consumers," said Jonathan Anzalone, the center's assistant director and a journalism lecturer."The first assignment we give our students is a news blackout. Go 24 hours without following the news. The goal of our course is to be an active, invested, and critical consumer."

Anzalone said that starts with simple questions.

"Ask yourself, 'whois saying that?'" he said. "Ask yourself whatyou know? And howdo you know it? And just as important, ask yourself what you don'tknow?"

Anzalone also recommends approaching this confusing information environment with a dose of humility and acknowledge that sometimes there are gaps in our knowledge, some things are hard to figure out, and sometimes stories take time to develop. He also encourages using one of the many available fact-checking resources.

"Sometimes our students say, 'we can't check everything!'" he said. "That's true. But if you think you might share it with someone, especially someone who's going to trust you, think twice and check it out. Go to those fact-checking sites and see what they have to say. If somebody's already doing the work for us, take advantage of that."

Anzalone also said the easiest advice he can give is to simply slow down.

Terry Sheridan

"You don't think you're operating very fast, but you are," he said. "If you just take a deep breath and you can probably solve 90 percent of your problems."

Terry Sheridan, lecturer in the School of Communication and Journalism and news director of WSHU Public Radio, where he oversees the WSHU-Stony Brook internship program, also offered some basic parameters to follow.

"Journalism is valid as long as it follows the three tiers of verification, independence and accountability," he said. "Opinion sites should be clearly labeled and not be mixed in with the news. You can have an opinion, but credible journalists must have the benefit of facts, stand behind what they say, and be accountable. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, former senator from New York, offered the famous quote: 'You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.'"

Despite the challenges, there is hope, and Schneider said the first step begins at home.

"Be a role model to your children and grandchildren," he said. "If you are not a role model for them, they're going to fall into a lot of these traps. You can have an impact. Start with your own family."

- Robert Emproto

Access guidance and resources from Stony Brook's Center for News Literacy, including the free online course.

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.