The Participation Blog

Speaking of Truthiness

The changes in news, who and how it’s presented and how “news” is defined is top of mind if we’re interested in fighting disinformation and fakes. Most people now get their information from cable news and the internet. The Rand Corporation considered journalism facts vs. opinion and concludes that “cable programming today is highly interactive and subjective and relies on arguments and opinions to persuade and debate.” They also found that their “online journalism sample was characterized by a personal and subjective style that, in many cases, emphasized argument and advocacy and was very different than the pre-2000 print journalism sample, which relied more heavily on event-based reporting that often referred to authoritative institutions or sources.” Are facts and evidence-based information and decision-making just becoming a quaint old-fashioned notion?