Critical Thinking Ruins Journalistic Integrity [Not Clickbait]

(Believe it or not, writing that title actually caused me physical pain. If fake news is sacrifices journalistic integrity, clickbait titles demolish an informative writer's pride in credibility.)

It's no secret that "fake news" has been a popular accusation among politicians and skeptics recently—take a peek at President Trump's twitter and it's a trending topic—but the issue itself is a complicated and an old one. People claiming to be an unbiased third party have been stretching the truth for years, whether they do it with the intent to fit a narrative or just interpreting the information as they see it, overlooking important details in the mix.

Consider the following timeline depicting "fake news" in modern history:

Though these are just a few examples, they show just how prevalent journalistic inaccuracies have been throughout history and the effects that new sources have on society. In fact, during the 2016 election, news became downright propagandistic.

Allow me to defend this hefty claim. A work can be considered propagandistic if it...

• Seeks to channel thinking into a single belief

• Bends the truth to meet an agenda

• Relies heavily on pathos or emotional reasoning

Sound familiar? Let's put it in context using the election of 2016.

Note: Before you rush to make judgments about my political position, know that my issue/support doesn't pertain to the candidates themselves, but with the way important, nuanced discussions are handled by those with influence over the minds of trusting consumers.

During the 2016 election, all TV news stations besides Fox News backed candidate Hillary Clinton. While it is not inherently bad for a independent companies to support a political candidate, it is troublesome when all the news produced by these companies not only praise or vilify the candidates themselves, but the people who vote for them. A majority of the campaign behind Hillary Clinton held up the argument that Trump was alt-right and evil and so was anyone who voted for him. As the correct and only choice for the common American, there was no way she wouldn't win, right?

Fox news fell to the same pitfalls. According to them, those who voted Clinton were voting for corruption as old as time and were obviously uneducated, brainwashed, or entitled. Anything incriminating that came out against Trump could be brushed aside as slander and nothing more. Clearly, anything that disagreed with them and theirs had to be looking through some distorted lens. They were just "Fake News."

Allowing agenda-based media to form an echo chamber closes minds and turns the world into a divisive sea of us or them, right or reviled, rather than a complex world full of individual paradigms that lean on past experiences.

Again, this example is intended to examine the way information was reported to the public, not to represent my views of the two candidates.

The political divide that widened in this election shattered the humanity of experience. Allowing agenda-based media to form an echo chamber closes mind and turns the world into a divisive sea of us or them, right or reviled, rather than a complex world full of individual paradigms that lean on past experiences. People seldom wake up in the morning with the intent to be misinformed or closed-minded.

Everyone is entitled to their own worldview, but that entitlement is voided when opinions are used to silence other voices with differing worldviews. Anyone who approaches discourse does so while claiming to be informed on a subject clearly is not as informed as they think; if the only way you can win an argument is to end it, you probably don't have much to stand on. Being "informed" is another way of saying they're right, as any opposition would have to be—by definition—uninformed. The scientific method utilizes a similar process: a theory proved to be true can only be accepted until proven false by more evidence. We must be open minded enough to consider that what we believe or are told to believe may be wrong.

(If your first thought was to consider that what I'm saying may be wrong, I commend you.)

So, how do we combat news that utilizes propagandistic tactics to spread a narrative? Follow this simple three step program:

One

Meet Your Maker

Do some research on the creators of the content you consume and find out their political leanings and corporate affiliations. Before you trust a bank to handle your finances, odds are you do research on its reputation or customer ratings to ensure that the one you choose has no history of corruption or consumer mistreatment. You wouldn't trust money to a banker with whom you're unfamiliar, so why would you entrust the gathering of information to a source you don't know?

Before ascribing credence to a news source, make sure they deserve your trust as a whole. What is their history? Have they knowingly spread misinformation without running a correction? You need to know about the people you trust to shape your worldview.

Two

See Other People

Don't just get news from one source consistently. Consult other sources to get a wider spectrum of ideas and information presentation. You don't have to agree with a news source's political leanings to listen to them. In fact, listening to other opinions will either make your beliefs stronger or open up the possibility that you were incorrect. Learning is healthy.

I would suggest also consulting online private media outlets; while they have their own biases, they generally aren't owned by one major corporation and have fewer hands in the metaphorical bucket. If their accuracy of their content is questionable, consult step one. Do your research and find out more about their credibility. Use these sources as a safeguard against large-scale corruption. If you diversify your sources, you'll get a good enough picture of the information, and, if there are discrepancies in reporting, dig a little deeper for the truth and re-evaluate the ones you trust.

Three

Use Your Head

Approach every piece you read with a healthy dose of skepticism. Every news source may have its bias, but that doesn't mean that every news source is lying. To orient yourself in the sea of messages that could be hidden in a particular work, ask yourself:

• What is the creator's purpose?

• What does the creator want me to believe after consuming this?

• What does the creator want me to do after consuming this?

If the purpose of the work is to coerce you into believing one specific thing, it probably isn't worth consuming. If you choose to consume works with heavy bias, make sure you're aware of this bias before you take in their content. Being aware that someone has a bias can help you keep your own thoughts and opinions safe from being swayed by heavy propaganda. However, even people who are blatantly biased can still make a good point persuasively. Just make sure that if you find yourself agreeing, it's because you agree with the argument, not the rhetoric.

Ultimately, we have a right and responsibility to demand factual material from what we consume. I'm not saying we picket at the step of biased news sources, but, as consumers, we can tell them what we want with our wallets and our time. The news sources that bend the truth will get the message once their subscriber count prevents them from keeping the power on.