Much has been said and written about fake news. It all boils down to this: It’s the arch nemesis of journalism. The moment you get involved, you get infected. You draw attention to this nonsense, spreading rumors by debunking them.
So far, we’ve ignored the worst rumors, the most absurd conspiracy theories. When they went low, we stood clear. But does this work anymore? We face a dilemma: We can ignore the fake news and become part of the story. (See what they don’t tell you!) Or we can take rumors seriously, invest resources, and fact-check them. (If they deny it, it must be true!)
How do you argue with people for whom facts are negotiable? How do you reach out to people who are opposed to the principles of journalism? Because it’s not enough to warn our users about fake news: We need to reach the users who stay away from us. We need to enter the filter bubbles where conspiracy theories flourish, to understand the attraction, aesthetics, and economics of fake news, the mechanisms by which rumors spread on social media and enter search results. Then, we need to use this knowledge to disrupt the self-enforcing circle of rumors and fake news.
We need to vaccinate the public with real journalism: explaining in detail how we come to a conclusion, how facts are gathered, what should be considered a fact and why — how journalism works.
One could argue that we’re not responsible — that parents, schools, and others are to blame. While there might be some truth to that, it doesn’t help. Un-faking the news is no easy task. It doesn’t promise us a pot of gold. And we won’t convince everyone. But it’s our civic duty to try, because we can’t entrust technology companies with editorial decisions. And we certainly cannot let governments and their agencies decide what’s newsworthy and what’s not.
This task requires journalists and publishers that care deeply about democracy and freedom of speech. When fake news hits, we need to hit back, vigorously.
Ole Reißmann is founder and managing editor of bento, a publication of Der Spiegel.
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Earn trust by working for (and with) readers
Erin Millar The bottom falls out of Canadian media
Ashley C. Woods Local journalism will fight a new fight
Hillary Frey Forests need to burn to regrow
Scott Dodd Nonprofits team up for impact
Eric Nuzum Podcasting stratifies into hard layers
Swati Sharma Failing diversity is failing journalism
Mathew Ingram The Faustian Facebook dance continues
Ray Soto VR moves from experiments to immersion
Asma Khalid The year of the newsy podcast
Lam Thuy Vo The primary source in the age of mechanical multiplication
Vivian Schiller Tested like never before
Elizabeth Jensen Trust depends on the details
Jon Slade Trusted news, at a premium
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen News after advertising may look like news before advertising
Jonathan Hunt Measurement companies get with the times
Mike Ragsdale A smarter information diet
Tim Griggs The year we stop taking sides
Caitlin Thompson High touch, high value
Robert Hernandez History will exclude you, again
Melody Kramer Radically rethinking design
Emily Goligoski Incorporating audience feedback at scale
Jim Friedlich A banner year for venture philanthropy
Kathleen Kingsbury Print as a premium offering
Sydette Harry Facing journalism’s history
Alice Antheaume A new test for French media
Errin Haines Chaos or community?
Liz McMillen The year of deep insights
Andrew Losowsky Building our own communities
Steve Henn The next revolution is voice
Juliette De Maeyer and Dominique Trudel A rebirth of populist journalism
Moreno Cruz Osório The year of transparency in Brazilian journalism
Jonathan Stray A boom in responsible conservative media
Reyhan Harmanci Bear witness — but then what?
Taylor Lorenz “Selfie journalism” becomes a thing
Julia Beizer Building a coherent core identity
Sarah Wolozin Virtual reality on the open web
Corey Ford The year of the rebelpreneur
Mary Walter-Brown Getting comfortable asking for money
Liz Danzico The triumph of the small
Juan Luis Sánchez Your predictions are our present
Emi Kolawole From empathy to community
Gabriel Snyder The aberration of 20th-century journalism
Almar Latour Thanks, #fakenews
Alexis Lloyd Public trust for private realities
Millie Tran International expansion without colonial overtones
Geetika Rudra Journalism is community
Kawandeep Virdee Moving deeper than the machine of clicks
Carla Zanoni Prioritizing emotional health
Andy Rossback The year of the user
Nathalie Malinarich Making it easy
Lee Glendinning A call for great editing
Pablo Boczkowski Fake news and the future of journalism
Ken Schwencke Disaggregation and collection
Claire Wardle Verification takes center stage
Dan Gillmor Fix the demand side of news too
Renée Kaplan Pure reach has reached its limit
David Skok What lies beyond paywalls
Bill Keller A healthy skepticism about data
Annemarie Dooling UGC as a path out of the bubble
Adam Thomas The coming collaboration across Europe
Javaun Moradi What can we own?
Doris Truong Connecting with diverse perspectives
Dan Colarusso Let’s make live video we can love
Guy Raz Inspiration and hope will matter more than ever
Samantha Barry Messaging apps go mainstream
Peter Sterne A dangerous anti-press mix
Bill Adair The year of the fact-checking bot
Christopher Meighan Unlocking a deeper mobile experience
Matt Karolian AI improves publishing
Alberto Cairo Communicating uncertainty to our readers
Ryan McCarthy Platforms grow up or grow more toxic
Matt Waite The people running the media are the problem
Andrew Haeg The year of listening
Andrea Silenzi Podcasts dive into breaking news analysis
Molly de Aguiar Philanthropists galvanize around news
Amy O'Leary Not just covering communities, reaching them
Olivia Ma The year collaboration beats competition
Ole Reißmann Un-faking the news
Richard Tofel The country doesn’t trust us — but they do believe us
Nicholas Quah Podcasting’s coming class war
David Chavern Fake news gets solved
Amy Webb Journalism as a service
Priya Ganapati Mobile websites are ready for reinvention
Mandy Velez The audience is the source and the story
Ariane Bernard Better data about your users
Carrie Brown We won’t do enough
Andrew Ramsammy Rise of the rebel journalist
Joanne Lipman The year of the drone, really
Katie Zhu The year of minority media
Ståle Grut The battle for high-quality VR
Sam Ford The year we talk about our awful metrics
Tanya Cordrey The resurgence of reach
Michael Kuntz Trust is the new click
Rebekah Monson Journalism is community-as-a-service
Cory Haik Navigating power in Trump’s America
Erin Pettigrew A year of reflection in tech
Mira Lowe News literacy, bias, and “Hamilton”
Francesco Marconi The year of augmented writing
Sarah Marshall Focusing on the why of the click
Sue Schardt Objectivity, fairness, balance, and love
Nushin Rashidian A rise in high-price, high-value subscriptions
David Weigel A test for online speech
Rubina Madan Fillion Snapchat grows up
Rachel Sklar Women are going to get loud
Margarita Noriega From pinning tweets to tweeting pins
Zizi Papacharissi Distracted journalism looks in the mirror
P. Kim Bui The year journalism teaches again
Sara M. Watson There is no neutral interface
Dhiya Kuriakose The year of digital detoxing
Aja Bogdanoff Comments start pulling their weight
Anita Zielina The sales funnel reaches (and changes) the newsroom
Keren Goldshlager Defining a focus, and then saying no
Tracie Powell Building reader relationships
Jeremy Barr A terrible year for Tiers B through D
Tim Herrera The safe space of service journalism
Rachel Schallom Stop flying over the flyover states
Umbreen Bhatti A sense of journalists’ humanity
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Truthiness in private spaces
Dannagal G. Young The return of the gatekeepers
Mary Meehan Feeling blue in a red state
Helen Havlak Chasing mobile search results
Cindy Royal Preparing the digital educator-scholar hybrid
S.P. Sullivan Baking transparency into our routines
Laura Walker Authentic voices, not fake news
Maria Bustillos “It’s true — I saw it on Facebook”
Mario García Virtual reality on mobile leaps forward
AX Mina 2017 is for the attention innovators
Amie Ferris-Rotman Вслед за Россией
Tressie McMillan Cottom A path through the media’s coming legitimacy crisis
Burt Herman Local news gets interesting
M. Scott Havens Quality advertising to pair with quality content