In an age of “alternative facts,” disinformation campaigns and deepfakes, people looking to be educated voters and consumers of news are at a disadvantage. Never before have there been so many ways for liars to spread messages so quickly. And never before have people been at such a loss about where to turn.
This is why I created They Stand Corrected, a podcast and newsletter focusing on fact-checking the media. We desperately need news agencies to be trustworthy sources of truth. Many have moved away from that mission.
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There’s a reason for this: They know the same thing that political candidates know. In the “attention economy,” there are far too many people clamoring to get noticed. They want you to click, read, listen or watch — often even more than they want you to be informed.
This helps explain the rise of Donald Trump, the former president who is again the Republican Party’s nominee for president. The ridiculousness and dangerousness of his lies don’t bother him, as long as he gets noticed.
Yes, he inspired a violent insurrection with lies about the 2020 election. His lies about immigrants fuel the “great replacement theory” — the belief held by the Nazis who rallied in Virginia in 2017 and the shooter who massacred 11 people and wounded six others at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018. Recently, Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, have continued to lie about immigrants, leading to bomb threats at schools and other sites in Springfield, Ohio.
All this makes “noise.” It breaks through the din, largely because media rush to cover it. Over time, that gives Trump a larger share of people’s minds. He no longer shocks them, and hearing about him so much makes some feel a sense of familiarity, swaying them toward him.
In one of my recent episodes, a marketing expert who understands the fight for attention explained why the media fall for this — particularly TV news and online video. “That Trump became nationally known through a reality television program makes him like catnip for the media, given the fact that they’re not really today seeking to inform and educate like Cronkite and Murrow,” marketing expert Vaughan Emsley said. Today’s media, he added, “benefits from chaos because that enables you to fill a 24-hour news cycle.”
That attraction to “catnip” also leads the media to rush to report things without fact-checking them first. Perhaps the most notorious example was the disastrous coverage of an alleged bombing of a hospital in Gaza. Top global news outlets raced to call it an attack by Israel that killed 500 people, which never made sense in the immediate aftermath of an explosion. It turned out to be yet another failed rocket attack by Palestinian terrorists, with a much lower alleged death toll. (These tolls come from the terrorist group Hamas, which also uses names like “health ministry.”)
By the time the truth came to light, news agencies had blared the lie worldwide to hundreds of millions of people who never heard any corrections. These agencies fueled even more attacks against Jews in Israel and elsewhere.
As these examples show, there are dangerous lies on the right and left. But when it comes to American politics, there’s a major difference. The “big lie” of the right, a stolen 2020 election, has overtaken the Republican Party. GOP lawmakers must espouse it or stay mum; Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois dared to speak the truth and were kicked out of Congress.
The “big lie” of the left, a mythical big bad Israel, has not overtaken the Democratic Party and remains mostly a belief of far-left members who call themselves “progressive.” At the Democratic National Convention, parents of an American hostage held by Hamas in Gaza spoke, and the crowd chanted “Bring Them Home.” Days later, Hamas slaughtered him and others.
And, quite simply, Trump has become an endless fire hose of extreme lies. There’s no current parallel on the Democratic side. It would be “bothsidesism” to pretend otherwise.
When it comes to the media, however, both big lies are widespread. Right-wing outlets have largely been overtaken by the big lie of the right; “mainstream” outlets by the big lie of the left. In one of the latest examples, mainstream news agencies rolled out a red carpet for Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose new book is packed with anti-Israel propagandist narratives and zero mentions of the slaughter of Jews, incitement taught in Palestinian schools, Iran, Hamas and more. None of these outlets fact-checked him. When one TV host finally challenged Coates, radicalized people inside the network complained, and top executives caved to them, criticizing their own anchor.
So where can people turn for truth? At speaking events, including at journalism schools, I’m often asked this question. My first answer is that this is why my show exists. I do my best to deliver facts and provide links to documents, videos and more in the newsletter.
In general, one helpful step is to seek out people who know a situation firsthand, can offer proof and have a track record of getting things right. This is why it was significant that, in correcting Trump’s baseless claim about immigrants eating pets, a debate moderator cited what Springfield’s city manager said.
Also, try to find the original source of a claim. The Springfield case started with someone posting on Facebook that she had heard this; she had no actual knowledge and later said she regrets mentioning it. In the case of Gaza, understanding that claims come from Hamas should be enough to make clear they cannot be trusted. The terrorist organization supported by Iran gleefully celebrates its slaughter of Jews and others. Similarly, Al Jazeera cannot be trusted, as it’s a state-owned propaganda arm of Qatar — a country with a long history of supporting Hamas, and in which Hamas leaders live freely as billionaires.
To be clear, inside many U.S. news outlets are fantastic, hardworking journalists committed to the mission of getting you the truth. Some are trying to improve systemic problems. They even send me links to fact check on my podcast, hoping external pressure will push executives to listen to them.
But, ultimately, the solution to all this misinformation is a generational fight for truth. I believe it begins with how we raise children. As a parent, I’ve seen something problematic that kids are taught in school and in society at large. They learn to equate intelligence with the ability to stake out a position and argue for it. Assignments include things such as, “Should lunch period be longer? Pick yes or no and argue your point using at least three reasons.”
I understand the thinking behind this. But we should be teaching kids to prize curiosity, learning and, yes, fact-checking, far above the ability to convince other people to share an opinion. There should be more assignments like: “So-and-so says that when lunch periods are 15 minutes longer, kids do better in school. Is that true? What can we explore to find out?”
This would be an opportunity to talk about research, examine studies to see what they really say, discuss methodologies, explore issues such as causation vs. correlation, conduct experiments, reach out to people with experience and more. Obviously, these assignments would differ for each age. Yes, some assignments like this already exist. But they’re too often relegated to science class, which sends the message that this way of thinking is only relevant if you want to be a scientist.
Similarly, I’d rather that debate teams no longer be treated as paragons of intellectual heft. Competitions in which people are given an hour to fact-check something and present what they’ve found would be more helpful.
If we raise kids to prioritize truth, open-mindedness and the search for proof above the ability to argue, we might strengthen future generations with the mental fortitude to instinctively explore the veracity of claims. They could be more likely to reject political candidates who spew dangerous lies and news organizations that give liars “open mics.” Ultimately, it will take that kind of change in demand to make politicians and the media do better.
Is that pie in the sky? Maybe. But generational fights have taken place in the past, and what was once considered novel can become a new norm. Like, say, democracy.
On the recent anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist massacres by Hamas in Israel, I had the honor of keynoting a commemoration ceremony. I explained that we can’t understand the horror of that day without the two essential ingredients of truth: facts plus context.
This lesson applies to everything that matters. We need news agencies to serve as warriors for truth, ensuring that everything they allow people to say on their platforms has been fact-checked as much as possible. If you agree, I invite you to join me in showing liars — in politics and media — that they stand corrected.
Josh Levs is host of They Stand Corrected, the podcast and newsletter fact-checking the media. Find him at joshlevs.com.
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