STANFORD—At a Hoover Institution event titled “Real and Fake News” Monday evening, renowned journalists Ted Koppel, Anne Applebaum, and Jessica Lessin analyzed solutions to an ongoing problem plaguing the news industry – the rise of disinformation in the age of social media.
The event, moderated by former US Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, was the most recent in a series of lectures titled “Cardinal Conversations” at the Stanford-based think tank.
Throughout the discussion, the panelists’ remarks largely revolved around the notion that as the Internet has rooted itself deeper into the media industry, it has become far easier for nearly anyone to contribute to the news conversation, something Ted Koppel referred to as “the democratization of the journalism process.”
While none of the panelists criticized the idea of an Internet representing the voices of more individuals, their concerns were more tuned to the primary consequence of this phenomenon – a dramatic increase in the spread of disinformation, colloquially known as “fake news.”
Applebaum, a journalist who has spent years reporting on post-communist Russia and more recently on the Russian use of social media to fabricate false news stories, described the levels of disinformation on a spectrum, ranging from the use of fake identities and audiences to promote certain stories all the way to the utilization of false narratives to spark political change.
The panelists specifically voiced their concerns on how the recent surge of fake information, combined with social media platforms that tend to limit the perspectives a user is exposed to, has fundamentally altered a person’s typical news intake.
“You’ve always had fakes, you’ve always had mistakes, you’ve always had people pretending to be people who they weren’t, but the number and quantity and speed have made them into something different which is that you can now actually live online in an alternate reality,” said Applebaum. “That I think is the new element that has caused the political disruption that we have seen all across the world in the last couple years. “
Koppel went as far as to refer to the Internet as a “weapon of mass destruction” that is “quite literally undermining the confidence in the institutions of our nations.”
While the journalists painted the picture of the modern state of disinformation as a rather grim one, a more optimistic bulk of the discussion keyed in on solutions to the ongoing problem of “fake news.”
Koppel, referring to the media business model in the age of social media, called on consumers to demand more objective reporting.
“It is the consumer demand that is warping journalism into providing an echo of prejudices that people already carry, rather than being an objective accounting of reality, which is apparently less marketable these days,” said Koppel. “I think we need to get back to a demand on the part of the consumer for objective facts. They’re not as much fun as opinion, but they’re a lot healthier for a democracy.”
Applebaum also commented on the responsibility of the average person to help mitigate the effects of disinformation. “The most important thing you can do is remember on social media that you are a journalist and a publisher. You should think of yourself as someone who is responsible for the information that you are passing on and spreading.”
While there was consensus among the panel on the role that the regular audience member can play in reversing the spread of disinformation, others on the stage forged a heavier burden on the responsibility of media outlets to provide objective reporting.
Jessica Lessin, a former tech-industry reporter for the Wall Street Journal and founder of the Silicon Valley-based publication The Information, emphasized the need for outlets to create quality journalism that is accessible to consumers.
“If we don’t train journalists and create good jobs for them, there isn’t going to be quality content to consume, and it will be drowned out by everything else,” said Lessin in a post-debate interview.
Applebaum also emphasized other actions that news organizations can take to assist in the struggle against public disinformation. Following the event, she briefly spoke about how newspapers need to start reframing and writing news in a different way so that the tide of polarized, political narratives that currently drive the news cycle can be reversed.
Overall, a call for objective, impartial reporting by all three panelists echoed the walls of Hauck Auditorium as the primary imperative for news organizations going forward.
“You can be impartial without giving equal weight to things,” said Lessin. “You don’t have to drown out the dissenters, but I think it’s important to anchor your coverage in the facts.”
In an age of Twitter bots perpetuating misleading stories throughout election cycles, Facebook users’ information being compromised on behalf of political campaigns, and a worrying fusion of news and entertainment dominating evening primetime (as panelists referenced during the conversation), these calls for action in response to the growth of public disinformation compromise what Lessin casually dubbed as “the conversation of our time.”
Ted Koppel, a long-time veteran of the news industry, is currently serving as the 2018 Mimi and Peter E. Haas Center Distinguished Visitor. A graduate of Stanford, he is most famous for anchoring the ABC program Nightline for nearly 26 years, in addition to reporting on notable events of the later 20th century, including the Selma Civil Rights March and the Vietnam War. His work as a journalist has earned him The Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award, eight Peabody Awards, and 12 Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Awards.
Anne Applebaum is a current columnist for the Washington Post and a Professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science. The majority of her work has focused on the societies of Eastern Europe both under periods Soviet control and in the post-communist era. Her non-fiction book, Gulag: A History, earned her the Pulitzer Prize for its detailed history of the Soviet prison camp system.
And Jessica Lessin is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Silicon Valley publication, The Information. A Harvard graduate, she spent the first years of her career at The Wall Street Journal breaking key news stories and developments within tech companies such as Google, Facebook, and Yahoo. Within the last few years, she has left The Wall Street Journal and founded her own tech-centric publication, The Information, which has since become a staple in the Bay Area media industry.
Tom Pfeiffer is a freshman staff reporter for Stanford Politics.