Hey friends,
With everything going on right now at the United States’ southern border, I’m seeing a lot of misinformation floating around on social media —memes posing as facts, faulty analogies, intentional disinformation, etc.—, so I’m reviving the old “How to Argue” series so we can dive into an important distinction:
News, Commentary, Propaganda, and Fake News
News is the presentation of facts, while commentary is the presenter’s opinion on those facts. The BBC and C-SPAN are probably the best examples of pure news since CNN is kind of a touchy subject for a lot of people these days. On the other hand, sources like late night comedy, MSNBC, Fox News, and an array of podcasts would all be considered commentary. (If you’re saying to yourself, “Hey, wait! Some of those are propaganda!” hold on, we’ll get there.)
Consider this example: children are being separated from their parents at the US’s southern border. This is demonstrable fact. There is documentation. There is video footage. Politicians are making speeches about it. It’s news. However, when a reporter covering this news adds a value judgment like “this is unnecessarily cruel” or “this is a necessary evil,” that’s commentary.
Please note that commentary can be accurate and helpful, but it’s still commentary, and even the best commentary should still be acknowledged for what it is. As to why this matters: most of what passes for “news” on facebook and twitter is really commentary. While we’ll inevitably pick up some of our news from commentary sources, it’s still a good practice to go track down the original news story before sharing. This is why God invented google.
When we cross from commentary into propaganda, we move from “news with an opinion” to “news with an agenda” (usually a harmful or discriminatory agenda). Approaching the news with foregone conclusions, propaganda often relies on extreme rhetoric and skews or selectively omits information to fit its narrative. Propaganda feeds existing biases and inflames them into outrage, and that’s what makes it so toxic. Many of the outspokenly political facebook pages actively stoke these fires, and our previously-mentioned commentators sometimes cross over into this realm as well. While commentary invites disagreement, propaganda silences it.
This is the difficulty with much of the commentary surrounding the southern border right now:
Are sources sympathetic to Trump exploiting anti-immigrant bias?
Are sources sympathetic to immigrants exploiting anti-Trump bias?
Are either of these biases enough to write off these sources’ commentary as propaganda?
The line between commentary and propaganda gets really blurry, so responsible fact-checking becomes all the more essential, but speaking of fact-checking…
Aside from the extreme language, questionable data remains one of the most obvious tells for propaganda, as propagandists routinely take statistics out of context or appeal to bad research in making their arguments. For example, when an article cites a “Harvard researcher” or “CDC official” without listing any names and credentials, there’s a good chance it’s faulty research. Propagandists may also hide behind official-sounding foundations (like the notoriously pro-smoking “Council for Tobacco Research”), so always look up an organization before trusting their findings. And of course, when it comes to questionable data, beware any “poll of our viewers” or “poll of our followers.” These polls rely on already-biased sample groups, and the wording of survey questions may even sway people toward particular answers. As I often tell my LSAT students, “If you want to know what the American people think, don’t start with a poll of Fox News or MSNBC viewers.”
And finally, there’s the infamous “fake news”— the clickbait headlines and conspiracy theories put out by non-mainstream sources who are strictly pushing an agenda. While propaganda seeks to manipulate reality, fake news has no concern for it whatsoever. This is where your Alex Jones types, your photoshopped meme makers, your made-up newspapers, and your Russian bots come into play, and a lot of political facebook pages are guilty of reposting and perpetuating this false information. If a headline seems too wild to be true (for example, “Clinton-owned pizzeria hides child slavery ring“), there’s a good chance it’s fake news.
Commentary may be an annoyance at times, but fake news and propaganda have no redeeming value whatsoever. They are malicious and exist solely to create discord, so be skeptical when you’re out there reading this stuff. Take an extra minute to google a story before you share it. Don’t trust every meme. Take full advantage of fact-checking websites. And be charitable when someone points out your “news” might actually be commentary, propaganda, or just flat-out fake.
Before we can come together to improve our reality, we have to reach some consensus on what that reality is. Thanks for reading, and be careful out there.