14/11/16 - Pressing problems for media old and new (17)

14/11/16 - Pressing problems for media old and new (17) 

This article discusses how the publication and spreading of misinformation within the news is becoming an increasingly huge problem. Amidst claims that one of the factors contributing to the victory of Donald Trump was fake news circulating on Facebook, fake news/'libel' is being viewed as more of an issue. While legislation such as Amendment I in the US constitution say that there should be freedom of the press, tabloid newspapers such as the National Enquirer have been infamous for publishing bogus stories with the Supreme Court failing to rule on these libel cases. With this it's being recommended that a workforce needs to be developed who actually police the publishing and broadcasting industry. At the same time though it's being said that this workforce needs to actually be human as oppose to the robots that most companies of today would look towards for efficiency purposes. This rule of 'if in doubt, don't publish it,' is one that many organisations still have to adopt.

• 38% of UK pupils aged 9 to 19 never questioned the accuracy of online information and only 10% said they were skeptical of it
• 66% of 9 to 19 year olds who went online regularly had not been given any guidance about how to judge the accuracy of online information
• Even a website that is perceived as being trustworthy like Wikipedia can contain serious errors. For example in 2005,Wikipedia incorrectly stated that the journalist John Seigenthaler had been involved in the assassination of the US president John F. Kennedy in 1963

The accuracy of information with the rise of new digital media is something that has to be paid attention to over time. The lack of gatekeepers that exist online only helps misinformation circulate more so this taskforce that is being discussed who police stories is without a doubt needed. However with even print publications such as the National Enquirer being known for its fake stories, perhaps this issue isn't so much of a new problem after all and rather it's just a continuation of what things were like previously.