A discussion on fake news and misinformation

As I have mentioned before in these blog posts, the class that they are for- Mobile and Social Journalism, also involves reading the text "Mobile and Social Journalism: A Practical Guide for Multimedia Journalism" by Anthony Adornato.

This week we were asked to read chapter 9 titled "The Spread of Fake News" and answer the following questions:

-How would you define fake news? Do you agree or disagree with the definitions

included in the chapter?

-What responsibility should tech companies assume in fighting the spread of

disinformation and misinformation?

-To what extent are they to blame for the proliferation of it?

-How do we combat the issue? What role should journalists play in fighting fake news?

I would define fake news as reporting that is backed in false claims or unchecked information.

In the chapter, it is defined as "deliberate fabrication of information with the intent to deceive. The intention of the creator is to mislead."

I agree that this could be with the intent to deceive or mislead, but I also think there are journalists who do not thoroughly check their story information or cover topics in an unbiased light, creating a form of fake news.

In my opinion, tech companies should have some sort of fact checking system specifically for accounts that claim to be new sources because I feel like you can't really stop people on a personal level from posting whatever the heck they want to post.

I don't necessarily think tech companies are to blame at all for the proliferation of fake news because companies like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook never claimed to be news sources but rather social media and people are just sharing things on these platforms as they were created to be used.

In order to combat the issue, I think that journalists should all be looking back at the foundation of journalism and the idea of objectivity to write the most effective stories. I believe that if this is at the beginning of quality writing, it will stand out and hopefully prevail.