Fake news. Before 2016, these words were most associated with fantastical ‘news’ rags that seriously discussed alien babies and bat boys. Nowadays, fake news has become a permanent fixture in our lives. Fake news and misinformation have become a plague for today’s writers; both those in the newsroom and those who make their living through careers in professional writing. However, fake news and misinformation has always been there lurking just under the surface and waiting to be ‘unleashed’.
‘You furnish the picture and I’ll furnish the war.’ So said legendary newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst to famed artist Frederic Remington, who landed in Cuba in 1897 in order to illustrate what was a rumoured revolution brewing in the island nation, then a colony of the Spanish Empire. Only there was no revolution, no conflict. There was nothing for Remington to illustrate; the explosion of the USS Maine in Havana Harbour in 1898 gave Hearst his opening. With only a few edited stories, some fake technical documents, twisted truths, and outright lies, Hearst whipped up the public so feverishly and so effectively that the US government, looking to prove itself on the world stage, landed troops in Cuba and began the Spanish – American War. A war which began an American adventure into the small island nation that wouldn’t end until 1959, when US – backed dictator Fulgencio Batista was deposed by Communist revolutionaries lead by one Fidel Castro.
If this situation seems familiar, that’s because it happened before, recently in fact. The Iraq War has its echoes of Hearst’s antics, with claims of Saddam Hussein’s supposed WMDs trumpeted by the Bush administration and backed up by traditionally respectable outfits like the Washington Post or Wall Street Journal. However, what has become of Iraq after the fateful invasion to find these supposed WMDs? A fragile and unstable state, ripe with corruption and plagued by Islamic fundamentalists duking it out with an increasingly weary US military; it isn’t hard to see the parallels.
Despite fake news and misinformation not being a new phenomenon, it wasn’t until the 2016 election cycle and the ascension of Donald Trump to the presidency that the ‘war on truth’ commenced. An election laden with false or misleading information concerning Trump’s opponents, and the latter’s continued efforts to warp the truth through Twitter rants, has created a virtual minefield for professional writers thanks to the spreading influence of misinformation.
But for today’s writers the solutions to this dilemma aren’t as difficult as they may appear. Just as the truth was found in the wake of 1899 and Iraq; thorough and exhaustive research is an absolute necessity. A good place to start is with recognized and widely – known credible sources; these can range from websites to books, depending on the subject. News sources like the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN, and even Fox News can be useful in discovering the concrete facts of a story. Yet, you shouldn’t limit yourself to one or two sources like these. Bias is an inherent part of any written piece, and sorting through things like news means you will run into a lot of it. By diversifying your sources, you can better spread fact from fiction and find the best details possible to support a piece.
Contrary to what has been drilled into students’ heads since its inception, Wikipedia is an exceptionally good choice to find information on all manner of topics; whether you are writing a government document, a new policy and/or procedure, or any other type of writing, Wikipedia most likely has the information you need. Even if it doesn’t, the site’s articles can offer plenty of sources for further reading; although, like news, some of these may not be academically credible or could be heavily biased, so diversify!
Aside from research, think for yourself! Make informed opinions on the topics you will be writing about. Don’t just blindly put pen to paper without knowing what you’re writing about and whether or not you can sufficiently back up your ideas. Today’s climate of fake news and misinformation is a stormy one and is incredibly easy to get lost in. By performing proper research from vetted sources and making informed opinions on things, you won’t follow in the footsteps of Hearst.