Fake news vs. real news

Before the Internet and social media took hold of our souls, it used to be fairly easy to tell the difference between real news and fake news but it’s not anymore. That’s because we’re inundated by both 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and our BS filter simply doesn’t work nearly as well as it used to. They don’t because outright lies and distortions are much more likely to see the light of day today than they were in generations past and be seen by many more people on top of that.

How and why does that happen? The answer is fairly simple, the solution is really hard. People like to hear and read things that support their own opinions and biases because it helps convince them that they’re right. And with the polarization of news organizations taking a right or left stance today, these differences become even more pronounced.

Regular viewers of FOX news and regular listeners of Rush Limbaugh don’t watch or listen to Rachel Maddow or MSNBC and regular viewers and listeners of the latter two examples don’t watch or listen to the first two. So we get a very fractured, biased picture of what’s going on in the world and, as mentioned, we almost always believe the side that sounds right to us.

The problem with fixing it is that we have to want to fix it. So many drug and alcohol rehab programs don’t work because the people there were court ordered to be there instead of going on their own and therefore have no personal interest in quitting their habit. How can a liberal or conservative person change their perspective if they don’t want to and the answer is, they usually can’t. But there is a way if they choose to use it.

That way is called self-awareness and self-control. The first thing we have to do is realize we’re not the smartest person in the world and, consequently, don’t have all the right answers all the time. If we can get ourselves to that point, then it’s possible we might look at the other side of the coin and consider the possibility that they’re more right than us. But the only way we can come to that conclusion is to use as many different sources as we can find to verify or reject either our position or theirs. That requires an open mind which most people don’t have but could acquire if their motivation is strong enough.

That’s what I got out of college and that’s what I tried to teach my students for the 35 years that I was a college professor. The objective of an education is not an accumulation of knowledge in your brain but an ability to look at a problem or situation from many different sides, with an open mind, in an attempt to discover the truth.

The scientific community is hard at work at solving this dilemma and leading people to an objective evaluation of facts instead of rumors because if they don’t, the truth will ultimately be doomed in our free, democratic society.

I joined Facebook to keep up with my family and former students of mine and it has turned into nothing but a billboard for political expression, most of it biased and wrong from both sides. The President of my Senior Class in high school published a photo today of the Seattle Seahawks Pro Football team celebrating a victory in their locker room by burning the American flag with every player smiling along with their head coach, Pete Carroll. It doesn’t seem like you would have to be very smart to realize that was a photo-shopped picture intended to enrage the uninformed but it sure worked on my former classmate and he publishes photos designed to evoke the same outrage practically every day.

Until we honestly desire to discover the truth rather than something that supports our biases and prejudices, this disconnect between people who would otherwise be friends will not end.

For the health and safety of our nation, it’s imperative that it does.