Truth Under Seige
- Darren Phillips
- Jan 15, 2020
- 5 min read
Updated: Nov 6
As a journalism professor who works hard every day to instill in aspiring young storytellers the profound importance of truth and accuracy in reporting, it’s hard not to feel like truth is under siege.
I do believe there’s a “special place” for individuals like Steven Bannon and Vladimir Putin, Alex Jones, et al, who knowingly sow discord and actively work to “flood the zone.” Unfortunately, any belief in ultimate judgment — hell, karma, pick your poison — provides little solace when the work these people are doing is so clearly and fundamentally undermining truth, peace, civility, and the rule of law in America right now.
I don’t think it’s a stretch to suspect this fierce weaponization of words and information in our current age of extreme interconnectedness could well lead to actual war, or at least a permanent state of extreme tribal hostility laced perhaps with a kind of low-grade and profound sense of despair. This is the “epistemic crisis” or “nihilism,” if you prefer, to which the author of the "flood the zone" article linked above refers, and I agree it certainly could make us more vulnerable to authoritarian rule. We are already seeing how Donald Trump is able to exploit this emerging vulnerability. Imagine what a more charismatic, more articulate, more ideology-driven authoritarian president could do.
So what is the solution? I think we, as a nation, must fully embrace and actively work to bring formalized media literacy education to every K-12 public school curriculum in America. Media literacy training has already been formally implemented in public school systems in some European countries, including Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden, with measurable success.
Of course, you educators out there are already working hard to teach and cultivate critical thinking skills in your schools and classrooms, which is part of what good media literacy training works to achieve. That’s absolutely important and must continue, but what I’m suggesting is more targeted, more specific and more hands-on, if you will. I would argue this kind of specialized instruction is absolutely essential to our survival as a free and democratic society.
As for our day-to-day interactions, it’s absolutely imperative we do not share, retweet, or otherwise be a party to propagating false or misleading information. This means we have to dutifully fact-check unsourced information, including seemingly innocuous political memes, etc., before we share it on social media. Also, we have to work to reach people outside our individual filter bubbles (both on and offline) and just engage with and challenge people we know are misinformed or trafficking, often unwittingly, in misinformation or outright propaganda. Of course, doing all this with patience and respect is paramount.
"As for our day-to-day interactions, it’s absolutely imperative we do not share, retweet, or otherwise be a party to propagating false or misleading information."
I am the first to admit the “patience and respect” part of the deal is not easy to uphold, especially when the stakes are so high, but we have no choice. Of course, we have to allow for differing opinions. I’m not talking about quashing people’s opinions. This is about working to achieve needed consensus regarding basic facts and information that should mostly be indisputable. Someone famously once said, “we are entitled to our own opinions, but not our own facts.”
In the end, to seek truth and report it, which is the first of four fundamental edicts contained in the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics, is perhaps more challenging for journalists now than ever before because it involves putting down existing false narratives, baseless conspiracy theories, and blatant propaganda almost as often as it involves doing original journalism. The Vox writer's whack-a-mole analogy is apropos. It’s an uphill and maddeningly frustrating exercise, for sure. Dunning-Kruger, cognitive dissonance, and so on, reign supreme.
I apologize if this sounds preachy. I just wanted to air my thoughts on an issue that is of particular interest to me. The Vox article does a good job of identifying the problem, which is half the battle, but it's short on solutions.
In the interest of finding solutions, below are links to a handful of valuable resources I use and share with my students in an effort to infuse my news writing, reporting, and editing courses with healthy doses of media literacy training. My longer-term goal is to write an actual media literacy course that could be offered university-wide as a lower-division common core or upper-division general ed course. Wish me luck. ☮︎
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to the author's employer(s) or any other organization, group or individual.
Note: Illustration and additional web links added in 2025.
The non-profit, nonpartisan Center for News Literacy at Stony Brook University provides online news literacy courses, external fact-checking resources, advanced web-searching and data forensic tools, and teaching resources for ordinary news consumers and educators alike.
The folks at Ad Fontes Media have done a good job of classifying news outlets according to their political biases and reliability. ADM's findings are presented in a graphical, easy-to-digest chart. ADM is nonpartisan, and its categorization methodologies are replicable, objective, rigorous and transparent. ADM also provides a selection of media literacy tools and resources — both complimentary and paid — to educators, publishers and individuals alike.
Not sure whether a news source is credible or at least reasonably unbiased? Look it up in the nonpartisan MBFC database to find out. Each news outlet's rating is based on exhaustive content analyses and fact-checks. Additionally, each news outlet's ownership history and funding sources are disclosed.
NLP is a nonpartisan organization whose stated mission is to ensure "all students are skilled in news literacy before high school graduation, giving them the knowledge and ability to participate in civic society as well-informed, critical thinkers." The organization provides a variety of educational and e-learning tools and tips for both educators and ordinary citizens alike.
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