Aliens invaded in 1938...or did they?

 I have talked a lot about current media and instances of fake news over the last few blogs. Let's turn the dial back now (our AM/FM dial) and talk about a very famous fake news story that was delivered via the radio.
I am not sure if everyone will be familiar with this story, because it happened so long ago. I thought I would share it now, in this era of fake news stories to show that "fake news" is not new, it just seems more prevalent now because we are hearing about it so often.

There was a time, when the radio served as the family gathering point for entertainment and news. This era was referred to as the Golden Age of Radio, when people would tune in to their favorite shows ranging from Guiding Light to the evening news with Walter Cronkite.

On the eve of Halloween 1938, actor Orson Welles performed an adaptation of H.G. Well's The War of the Worlds. His adaptation took the form of a breaking news story, containing sound effects and briefings from government officials. The breaking news story was a Martian invasion in New Jersey. This may seem like a far-fetched story to believe, but it caused hysteria. There were reports of stampede's, suicides and jammed phones lines to the police, newspapers, and radio stations from panicked residents.

Is the panic outlined in this story real or is it legend? Could this fake news story also have another layer of fake news attached to it?

A. Brad Schwartz is one of many researchers who claim that the hysteria was not as wide spread as reported.  He claims that newspapers exaggerated the panic to sway people away from radio, which was becoming a more popular source for people to get their news and entertainment from.

Did newspapers use this opportunity to show that radio was unreliable and untrustworthy? Was the panic real? Did Orson Welles intend on deceiving listeners, or did he think the story was so far fetched, no one would take it seriously?

I will leave it for you to decide.......

Private vs. Public= Profit vs.Public Interest

Media may come in all shapes and sizes, digital, print, radio...but did you know their funding and agenda differs based on whether they are privately or publicly owned? This difference in ownership could have a direct impact on the propagation of fake news for financial gain. Being aware of this may help us source more reliable news.

Publicly owned media is just that...for the public. They have an obligation to the public to deliver varying opinions and they commit to remain bipartisan in their delivery of information. The source funding model, sometimes funded through taxes and licensing fees ensures a neutral relationship between broadcasting and the public while remaining independent of the government. They have nothing to gain from providing slanted news or false information. They are not for profit and do not rely on sales and viewership for revenue...unlike privately owned media.

Privately owned media is where we can get into the sticky situation of fake news for profit. They rely on ratings and advertising with fewer obligations than private media. This opens the door for news stories that capture the headlines and grab viewers attention, regardless of validity. The "big six" media corporations seen in the title image control 90% of the news media in the United States. That is a huge amount of power in the world of media for private media outlets lightly regulated by public interests.

We should remember that corporations are businesses that rely on popularity to make money. The drive to be the most profitable can lead us down a road of uncertainty and unreliability.

Trending, "Fake News" ....all the kids are saying it

countercurrents.org

Am I the only one noticing the new it phrase seems to be "Fake News"? We can trace its rise in popularity back to the incoming United States president, Donald Trump.

I do not think the phrase has been used as frequently as it has been since he took office.

During the 2016 presidential campaign post truth was used so frequently that it was declared the international word of the year by Oxford Dictionary. The term is used to describe circumstances where objective facts are "trumped" by personal opinion and emotional appeals.

We only need to think back to the debate surrounding the crowd size at Trump's inauguration to see post truth or fake news working at it's best. Trump and his administration claiming that their declaration of having the largest audience ever at an inauguration, was their way of using fake news to respond to what they say was the media's use of fake news when they reported on the diminished size of the crowd at the event(Kristiansen, 2018). Way to show them!


What a way to begin a presidency. The fact that this inauguration conversation required a month long investigation from the Department of the Inspector General and proof from the National Park Service (NPS) that they did not alter estimates of the crowd size at the inauguration, shows just how much of an impact fake news can have and how quickly it can spread.

Metro.co.uk

There have not been too many positive words making there way to the news since Trump took office and many claims of fake news and post truths. It makes it very hard to distinguish what is real and what is fake. It must be very hard for the American public to stand behind a presidency so shrouded in falsehoods

I worry not only for the United States but also about the world as a whole because we also feel the effects of an individual who has brought such strong feelings of doubt to the world.

Do we know if all the stories Trump claims to be fake news are in fact fake news? Is there a conspiracy among Trump haters to make him look bad in the media? I do not know if there are any ways of truly figuring this out without relying on tried and true objective facts...but who do we trust to provide those?


Kristiansen, L. J., & Kaussler, B. (2018). The bullshit doctrine: Fabrications, lies, and nonsense in the age of trump. Informal Logic, 38(1), 2. doi:10.22329/il.v38i1.5067

Spot the Fake

Thinking back to the days of my parents sitting and enjoying the newspaper on a warm summer evening brings happy feelings of a simpler time. A time when the news that was delivered to our mailbox everyday was reliable and the stories on the evening news were true.

Did anyone ever worry back then about the validity of the news? I think the only threat those pages posed was the possibility of blackening our fingers with ink.

Fast forward to present day. We now live in the digital era, where everyone is a potential "journalist" with the ability to post news real or fake. The question is though, how do we spot the difference? How can something that appears professional and true be fake? How do we know that what may seem fake is actually real?

It is a confusing time and often hard to navigate the waters of truth and fiction. The definition of fake news was discussed in the New York Times. It was defined raw opinion being passed off as news, which causes confusion and doubt among readers.

The best way to spot the fake is to go through the tried and true steps of who, what, when, and why. Piktochart offers a useful cheat sheet of sorts to help spot fake news using these tactics. It gives you a quick run down of tools to use to help scrutinize the publication and test its authenticity.

The truth is out there. We just have to know how to find it and how to spot the fakes.