Please note that you can spotlight Janine and Alexei when they are speaking by clicking on view and selecting "Speaker"

Let’s talk about the failure of “bothsidesism” by news media that gives creedence to the crazies. Cf Jay Rosen and Dan Froomkin.

Are there inherent reasons why it has become, seemingly,much harder to push back on and confine the "noise" anddis/mis-information? Has it actually become harder?Perhaps asking differently, has it become easier to "sell"lies?

Mr. Vossbrink: by "bothsideism," do you mean equal coverage of opposing views?

lots of problems - any solutions? even partial solutions?

One very unfortunate reaction to misinformation is that the left has also become super tribal. And valid views that should get discussed are shot down if they have any possible overlap with talking points of the other tribe (say if someone raises any possibly valid question about vaccines say for 5yr olds, they get cancelled as an antivaxer). Would love to hear your thoughts on this.

what can you say about the public's news preferences? Positive for titillation, especially conflict or otherwise negative news? Negative for complexity, ambiguity, uncertainty? If education was supposed to support democracy, how explain our civic life when education levels are higher than ever?

Re bothsidesism, a good definition from Websters:https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/bothsidesing-bothsidesism-new-words-were-watching

How can we best educate people to think critically and to fact check questionable news?

Dear & eloquent presenters: I'm a stickler for defining terms. "fake news" is different news content depending on context/political view/economic interest, etc. Let's have a functional definition for purposes of this webinar, please.

We’ve spent most of the session focused on the problems. Could we please shift to solutions at some point soon?

ref: bill banker emai in your opinion, is there any validity to the items he mentions ? i,.e, are the fact based jounralist and news organizations you mention, are they mostly always "correct" / "truthful" / "factual"? e.g. is there any reporting of those who feel climate change may be happening, but is it wholly or mainly caused by human activity? Or is there any nuisance to the review of the Arizona recount?

@Ron Lopez—they gave a functional definition of “fake news” earlier in the webinar; maybe 10 minutes in

Echo S.W. Platt: coverage of the Arizona vote investigation and use of programmable voting machines without vote integrity checks.

Framing and perspective are important because so often the “source” has an agenda behind providing the information.

CalMatters! 😀

Phenomenal daily newsletter ^

One of my coworkers mentioned that they’re teenage daughter approaches all information with high degree of skepticism - are we seeing different ways that the generations are receiving and internalizing information? What sources do highly skeptical people trust? It feels like a lot of social-media-fueled news and clickbait becomes a race to the bottom.

Are there glimmers of hope that reasonable people are becoming more sophisticated in their consumption of news—and perhaps more fundamentally, resisting or even rejecting news sources that are obviously meant to manipulate by appealing to the basest human emotions?

@Julie—we were reading each other’s minds, I think! 😉

Yes, lol, almost like we planned it....

( we didn’t plan it, for the conspiracy theorists)

I think too many schools (and parents) don’t teach kids how to evaluate information and vet it for reliability. The challenge is it requires time and perseverance to vet info, and in today’s world speed & immediacy rule all too often.

Haha — we didn’t. Great minds think alike, though! ;-)

I struggle with very intelligent and critical people who still may fall into the trap of whataboutism. How do we combat this phenomenon?

I have found that what politicians say is one thing, but what is left unsaid can be just as important. We as consumers like to see what they are leaving out, what they are leaving unsaid. It does seem that most media organizations either cover what the politician says, or what the opposition says, but not presenting the whole picture. That there are so many sources are out there completing this picture, filling this void, fake or not, seems to me to be one of the main sources of the loss of trust in any one journalist.

Yes, the blank space is most important from that level of communications

crowdsourcing popularity has become a defense - someone in professional circles said the best way to defend against a reputational hit is to get the trusted voices of the community on your side, which can be scary for introverts. Corporate culture too I feel has gotten impacted from this too.

IDK if this was already covered, but news orgs giving equal weight to opposing views when one side is not legitimate or supported by data or facts has been a problem for the past 5-10 years. Even NPR falls into this trap.

+1

“Native advertising” sounds so nice compared to “advertorials”… :(

Too much reporting of he said/she said without context or background to help consumers judge who has a reasonable argument vs someone just trying to troll or rile up a base.

super. thanks!