FACING FACTS
CREATING A DEFINITION OF FAKE NEWS
by
Hilbert Flokstra
MA Thesis Digital Humanities
LHU999M15
Supervisor: dr. S.A. Eldridge II
18-06-2017
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ABSTRACT
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 5
CHAPTER I: TRUE NEWS 8
1.1 WHAT IS JOURNALISTIC TRUTH-TELLING? 9
1.2 WHAT IS OBJECTIVITY? 14
1.3 THE HISTORY OF OBJECTIVITY 24
1.4 CHAPTER ONE CONCLUSION 27
CHAPTER II: FAKE NEWS 28
2.1 TELLING LIES 29
2.2 TELLING OPINIONS 32
2.3 FAKE NEWS IS SUBVERSIVE 35
2.4 WHAT FAKE NEWS IS NOT 38
2.5 CHAPTER TWO CONCLUSION 42
CHAPTER III: CREATING DATA 43
3.1 BUZZFEED FACT-CHECKED DATASET 44
3.2 COLLECTING RELEVANT DATA 47
3.3 DESCRIPTION OF THE DATASETS 50
CHAPTER IV: ANALYZING DATA 53
4.1 SUBJECTIVITY AND SENTIWORDNET 54
4.2 VISIBILITY BIAS 57
4.3 READABILITY AND TEXTUAL QUALITY 59
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5.1 SUBJECTIVITY ANALYSIS RESULTS 62
5.2 VISIBILITY ANALYSIS RESULTS 66
5.3 READABILITY ANALYSIS RESULTS 68
5.4 TRUTHFUL PARTISAN ARTICLES ANALYSIS 71
CHAPTER VI: DISCUSSION & CONCLUSION 76
6.1 DISCUSSION 76
6.2 CONCLUSION 80
APPENDICES 82
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INTRODUCTION
“How Democrats are Going to Try to STEAL the Election for Hillary!”1 “Two White Men
Doused With Gasoline, Set On FIRE By Blacks – Media CENSORED!”2 “Fast Food CEO
Threatens To Fire Everyone If A Democrat Wins The Presidency!”3 These are just some of the
headlines and statements originating from articles that are considered to be fake news by
BuzzFeed researchers.4 Fake news became a popular term during the 2016 US presidential
elections. The term was used to refer to any and all article that seemed too absurd to be true. Speculation arose about the potential influence of fake news on its audience. Due to the rising influence of social media such as Facebook and Twitter these articles were not subjected to any type of filter. The articles would reach their designated audiences without any hindrance of the traditional media and professional journalists. Fake news articles are presented to their readers as seemingly similar to the mainstream news sources that most readers are accustomed to. Though underneath the credible-looking surface is an endless stream of questionable information presented as fact or quotes presented as real. Nevertheless, in order to find what is underneath, time, expertise and skills are required. The average reader has a hard time
distinguishing fake news articles from non-fake articles.5 This brings the discussion to a pivotal
point. What is it that sets fake news apart from its non-fake counterpart? It is this question that will be the common thread throughout this thesis. Fake news suggests that it is something different, adding an adjective ‘fake’ to the noun ‘news’. Before it is possible to define fake news, it is necessary to define news in itself.
The first chapter will explore the discussion and debates surrounding the craftsmanship involved with professional journalism and the creation of factual and objective news. Factuality and Objectivity form the core ideal of factual news in this thesis. And it is factual news that will be considered the binary opposition or counterpart of fake news. Dale Jacquette, Michael
1 Dale Summitt, “How Democrats are Going to Try to STEAL the Election for Hillary,” Eagle Rising,
http://eaglerising.com/37044/how-democrats-are-going-to-try-to-steal-the-election-for-hillary/ (accessed May 18, 2017).
2 Frank Lea, “Two White Men Doused With Gasoline, Set On FIRE By Blacks – Media CENSORED (VIDEO),”
Freedom Daily, http://freedomdaily.com/white-men-set-on-fire-by-blacks-media-censored/ (accessed May 18, 2017).
3 “Fast Food CEO Threatens To Fire Everyone If A Democrat Wins The Presidency,” news.groopspeak,
http://news.groopspeak.com/fast-food-ceo-threatens-to-fire-everyone-if-a-democrat-wins-the-presidency/ (accessed May 18, 2017).
4 Jeremy Singer, “Fact-Checking Facebook Politics Pages,” GitHub, October 28, 2016,
https://github.com/BuzzFeedNews/2016-10-facebook-fact-check (accessed May 18, 2017).
5 Camila Domonoske, “Students Have 'Dismaying' Inability To Tell Fake News From Real, Study Finds,” NPR,
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Schudson and Gaye Tuchman, among others, will be important scholars and professionals in the field of Journalism Studies that help me create a working definition of factual news. Truth-telling, objectivity and neutrality will be established as key concepts in relation to the dominant ideals regarding factual news. This chapter will also briefly touch upon the subservient definitions of factual news, namely the subjective and commercial tradition of which, respectively, Geneva Overholser and Noam Chomsky will be the flag-bearers. As this chapter ends with a working conception of the definition of factual news it opens up the possibility of setting up fake news as the antithesis of factual news.
Chapter two will dive into the different discussions revolving around fake news. It will collect the different conceptions put forward by authors and scholars in order to explore the current debate. I will establish that the essential difference between factual news and fake news is the level of factuality. Nevertheless, this would neglect all the other discussion about fake news that point towards its apparent bias and subjectivity as primary signifiers of fake news. Subjectivity, bias and a bad quality of writing are considered, by some authors discussed in this chapter, as individual markers of fake news, even when these fake news articles contain factual information. I will argue that these markers are inadequate primary markers of fake news as these qualities are often seen as primary features of other well established and described forms of journalism such as advocacy journalism or other forms of communication such as propaganda. Factuality will be assigned the role of primary marker of fake news. In order to further elaborate on the creation of a definition of fake news I will analyze whether the other markers might form potential characteristics more common in news articles with false information, or fake news.
The main research question of this thesis is as follows: Are higher subjectivity, visibility bias and readability levels typical of fake news when compared to factual news? Chapter three will discuss how to collect the necessary data in order to perform computational analyses. The basis of my dataset originates from the BuzzFeed fake news collection created in 2016 during the presidential elections. I will explain how I used this dataset to construct new datasets that serve as a basis for further research. One dataset contains mostly true articles while the other dataset contains mostly false articles.
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be calculated by counting the appearances of political parties and actors and comparing the numbers belonging to the two datasets. If visibility bias is a characteristic of fake news then the expectation is that higher visibility swings should be found in the mostly dataset. Readability levels are attained by the Flesch Reading Ease Test obtained through the Textstat Python library. The expectation is that factual news is better written as it is often written by professional journalists while fake news might be written by anybody thus resulting in more general writing levels.
The main goal of this thesis is to make a contribution towards the debate about what fake news is. Creating a clear definition of what fake news entails, by answering the research question, helps in further debates regarding the topic. Current developments related to the topic of fake news suggest that speediness is required in creating such a definition. Already, the term ‘fake news’ is being pulled into political rhetoric by spinning the term as referring to any sort
of news that is critical of Donald Trump and his policies.6 Without a serious attempt at creating
a supported definition of fake news it is impossible to correct the misuse of the term. This thesis will create such a supported definition not only by theorizing, but also by facing the facts.
6 Louis Nelson, “Trump: Fake news media 'has never been so wrong or so dirty',” POLITICO, June 13, 2017,
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CHAPTER I: TRUE NEWS
Before it is possible to do any sort of analysis on fake news it is important to create a definition of what fake news is. Before it is possible to answer that question it is pertinent to develop a working definition of its antithesis, ‘factual news’. Journalistic reporting, writing and production is not called factual news on a daily basis, but it does capture its essence for this thesis, namely that it constitutes a term that describes the accepted and dominant principles of contemporary journalism and the production of news. Another necessitation for creating a working definition of factual news is the idea that fake news constructs somewhat of a binary opposition, the opposition between fake and factual. Understanding any side of a binary opposition requires the understanding of its polar opposite, in this case factual news.
There is actually little consensus about what constitutes proper journalistic reporting. As this particular case study has its focus on the United States I decided it might be helpful to narrow down the aim by looking at the United States. The result was a recurring term and its associated values, namely objectivity. Richard Kaplan defined objectivity as “American
journalism’s proudest achievement.”7 Michael Schudson defined objectivity as the “dominant
ideal that legitimates knowledge and authority in all contemporary professions.”8 Recurring
values associated with objectivity are truth-telling and factuality, political neutrality, and refraining from passing judgment. It is exactly these values and their historical roots that will be explored in this chapter to define contemporary professional journalism in The United States. Special attention is given to truth-telling as one persistent definition of fake news refers to its non-factuality.
7 Richard Kaplan, “The Origins of Objectivity in American Journalism,” in The Routledge Companion to News and
Journalism, ed. Stuart Allen (London and New York: Routledge, 2012), 25.
8 Michael Schudson, Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers (New York: Basic Books,
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1.1 WHAT IS JOURNALISTIC TRUTH-TELLING?
In 2016, “post-truth” was awarded the title of word of the year by the Oxford Dictionary.9
“Post-truth is defined as relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less
influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”10 The term
rose to fame during the 2016 United States presidential election, its fame can be tied to the way in which Donald Trump communicated with the outside world. The candidate Trump would often make claims that were either untrue or unsubstantiated. The Republican was often called out on some of the fictional aspects of his claims by journalists and fact-checkers. Nevertheless, Trump would often stand behind his claims and refer to the journalists as either being biased or
dishonest.11 This rhetoric would then be repeated on Trump’s official Twitter page. The most
intriguing part of the term “post-truth” for this particular thesis is the word “truth”. What does the “truth” in “post-truth” refer to?
Dale Jacquette is an influential philosopher who has tried to create a working definition of what the truth is and what it means to tell the truth. He starts the first chapter of his work Journalistic Ethics: Moral Responsibility in the Media with the following text: “We have already considered the importance for journalists of truthful reporting. False ‘information,’ as we have suggested, is not really information; hence it is not really news, even if it is offered in
the context of a news report.”12 Jacquette goes on to state that we are not correctly and factually
informed when an audience is told that is it “raining when in fact it is not raining.”13 Jacquette
thinks that journalists fail at their profession when they do not present truthful information.”14
The author makes a comparison between the state of things and journalistic reporting. He states that these two are similar with regards to the true nature of things. This statement immediately brings up a philosophical question of what the world ‘truth’ actually entails. Is all truth-telling in journalistic practice comparable to reporting a meteorogical measurable and observable phenomenon such as rain? Jacquette claims that truth itself is a continuously debated topic among philosophers who all have their own viewpoints and opinions that might possibly be
9 Amy B Wang, “‘Post-truth’ named 2016 word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries,” The Washington Post,
November 16, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/16/post-truth-named-2016-word-of-the-year-by-oxford-dictionaries/?utm_term=.fac3889afc68 (accessed April 24, 2017).
10 Ibid.
11 Dylan Byers, “Trump attacks media in lengthy, combative press conference,” CNN, February 16, 2017,
http://money.cnn.com/2017/02/16/media/media-bashing-donald-trump-press-conference/ (accessed April 24 2017).
12 Dale Jacquette, Journalistic Ethics: Moral Responsibility in the Media (London and New York: Taylor & Francis
Group, 2006), 12
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valid definitions of the term.15 Chris Frost puts aside these discussion by stating that “[n]o matter what cynics may say, in the final analysis, journalism is about truth-seeking.” The journalistic profession “is about presenting facts that have been properly researched and checked and put together in an attempt to present readers or viewers with a coherent factual
story about an issue or event that will be of interest.”16 Jacquette reasons in a similar way as he
thinks it is possible and necessary to approach the problem in a clear and reasonable way without getting into philosophical debates as journalists themselves have no time for such debates and function as legitimate truth-seekers.
He starts off by exemplifying, through child-rearing, that telling the truth and telling lies are intuitive aspects of human existence. “We know what it means for a child to tell the truth or to lie about whether it has been in the cookie jar, and we know roughly as well what it means
for a news reporter to tell the truth or to convey something false.”17 He then goes on to say that
it must be possible to be “more concrete and definite about these intuitive ideas.”18 According
to Jacquette, declarative sentences, also known as propositions are concrete markers of assessing truthfulness.19 A sentence that makes a claim about the state of things, such as:
“Donald Trump is a Republican President” is either factually true or not. According to Jacquette, propositions that are positively affirmed can be considered truthful, while propositions “that [do] not correspond positively to the facts it purports to represent” are
considered false.20 Other type of sentences such as imperative or interrogative sentences are
bad markers for assessing truthfulness as these sentences offer no propositions to prove or disprove. Jacquette states that this definition is similar to the correspondence theory of truth
defined as “the view that truth is correspondence to, or with, a fact.”21 He also states that this is
certainly not the only definition of what truth is. The correspondence theory is a formal theory, in that it does not explain how truth can be found or how propositions can be proven true or false. Nevertheless, according to Jacquette “for practical purposes in trying to understand the moral requirements of truth telling in journalism, and even in science, mathematics, and everyday affairs, the definition is perfectly correct.”22 Now that it is established how truth
15 Dale Jacquette, Journalistic Ethics, 21.
16 Chris Frost, Journalism Ethics and Regulation (New York: Routledge. 2016), 70. 17 Dale Jacquette, Journalistic Ethics, 21.
18 Ibid., 21. 19 Ibid., 22. 20 Ibid., 22.
21 Marian David, “The Correspondence Theory of Truth,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, May 28, 2015,
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-correspondence/ (accessed April 25, 2017).
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claims are conveyed it is important to explore how the state of things, or factuality, is explored by journalists.
Jacquette withholds from a philosophical discussion about factuality for the same reasons that he withholds from such a discussion when it comes to the textual markers of truth claims. For Jacquette facts are nothing more than the state of things. Facts are either explored
or checked through self-investigation or through interaction with others or practical matters.23
Facts can also be observed by journalists themselves or perceived by others.24 What is at the
core of facts is the idea that they can be confirmed or disproven.25 In order to exemplify these
ideals it might be good to bring back the example of rain mentioned in the first quote of Jacquette. When a reporter claims that it has rained at 2 p.m. in Naytahwhaush, Minnesota, while in fact, according to meteorological data, eye witness reports, and pictures taken during that time, it has not, the reporter is not being truthful as the facts do not correspond to the proposition. Nevertheless, truth-telling is not solely the correspondence of proposition and fact. Reporters can tell truthful stories but withhold important factual information that might change the meaning of reported truths. For example, a reporter who writes a story about a murder but forgets to report on the fact that it was out of self-defense is truthful but incomplete. Therefore it is important to discuss the concept of relevant truth put forward by Jacquette.
In reporting events and issues, journalists have the freedom to select the information that they want to convey in their stories and reports. It is this freedom that might lead to debates about what is defined as relevant information. When a reporter is writing an extensive essay on the economic policies implemented by President Trump it seems less important to report about the hairstyle of the President, or his choice of tie for that matter. While his hair color and tie color are considered to be factual information they are of little relevance to Trump’s economic policy. The previous example is extreme, but it signifies the problem that journalists face when writing a particular piece. Jacquette states that “[i]n the case of journalism, relevance depends on whether, when, and how an investigator or reporter may try to address the interests of a particular readership or audience by choosing to emphasize some rather than some other aspects of a news story.”26 The reporter writing a piece about the economic plans of Trump might
rightfully decide to not report on the foreign policy measures instigated by Trump unless they influence those same economic plans. However, if Trump’s choice of tie brand is somehow
23 Dale Jacquette, Journalistic Ethics, 23. 24 Ibid., 23.
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related to a blackmail scheme designed by the tie manufacturer it might be very relevant to discuss Trump’s choice of ties. The tie might also be relevant in the business section of a newspaper that revolves around style choices for businessmen. Another important factor in what to discuss as relevant truth has to do with the level of credibility of certain source. Frost mentions the example of a politician being involved in a car crash. A journalist writing a story about the car crash might receive information from a source that the involved politician left a bar in a drunken state. While this information is relevant it might be untrustworthy as the
information cannot be sufficiently checked for truthfulness.27 Even if reporters make legitimate
selections of facts that they want to present in their stories there will always remain discussion and disagreement as journalists might have different opinions about what constitutes as relevant truths. Jacquette offers the following definition as a signpost:
“What we can offer journalists by way of a moral signpost in professional journalistic ethics is the reminder that their fundamental obligation is to tell the truth and that the choice of what information is relevant or irrelevant to a given news story has a direct impact on whether or not they are adequately addressing their
customers’ legitimate interest driven desire for information.”28
Note that the core of reporting is still truthfulness, factuality remains at the heart of the argument. The choice of relevant truths will return later in this thesis as the selection of what issues to report on might lead to intentional or unintentional biases. It will also return in the next section, as the choice of relevant truths might also be an issue of objectivity when a journalist tries to create a balanced story.
Jack Fuller makes truth-telling even more concise. According to Fuller, truth-telling is the practice of being accurate. No matter how small a given statement in a text might be it is of utmost importance that the journalist makes sure that he presents the verifiable and factual information correctly.29 If a journalist fails to do so he runs the risk of harming his own reputation and that of the news agency that the journalist is working for. Frost supports this idea by stating: “A media outlet that produces factual errors, or misleads and does not correct the
mistake as soon as possible will gradually lose the trust of consumers.”30 Or in the words of
Fuller: “Get the little things wrong and the readers will not trust you to get the big things
27 Chris Frost, Journalism Ethics and Regulation, 71. 28 Dale Jacquette, Journalistic Ethics, 34.
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right.”31 Fuller mentions examples such as street names or the names of corporations and
persons, truth-telling, according to Fuller, means being precise. In this case, truth-telling is not only in the public interest, it also serves the interest of journalists and news agencies in maintaining an audience.
So what is journalistic truth-telling? Combining the different arguments put forward in this section it is possible to assert that truth-telling is the process of making propositions that are verifiably, through fact-checking and other journalistic processes, true. It also includes the inclusiveness of relevant truths for that particular proposition. Accuracy in reporting facts is important in maintaining credibility and as a results a reading audience. Now that a basis for truth-telling has been established it is possible to move ahead and look specifically at how stories are being told by introducing another key concept of ‘factual news’, namely objectivity.
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1.2 WHAT IS OBJECTIVITY?
‘Fair and balanced’ was the official slogan of the US news broadcaster Fox News. While many have debated whether or not Fox News is actually fair and balanced, it does beg the question what fair and balanced reporting actually entails.32 This section will try to explore another important aspect of journalistic reporting, namely objectivity. The term objectivity is in itself a fluid concept in that it refers to many aspects of reporting. Aspects such as truthfulness,
neutrality/impartiality and detachment are often mentioned in conjunction with objectivity.33 In
order to better understand what is meant by objectivity and its importance in contemporary journalism I will look at all the aforementioned aspects of objectivity. As the previous section discussed truthfulness at length this section will primarily focus on neutrality and detachment. I will also look at some of the contemporary objections towards objectivity as a guiding principle for journalists.
Definitions of objectivity are plentiful. Nevertheless, Michael Schudson’s book, Discovering the News, offers a working definition of the term objectivity. Schudson stated that “the belief in objectivity it just this: the belief that one can and should separate facts from
values.”34 Richard Kaplan draws on Schudson’s work to interpret objectivity in the following,
more elaborate, way: “Under objectivity, journalists adopt the pose of scientists and vow to eliminate their own beliefs and values as guides in ascertaining what was said and done.”35 Kaplan goes on to state that “the journalist strives to become a rigorously impartial, expert
collector of information by supposedly avoiding all subjective judgments and analysis.”36
“More than just ending formal political alliances and external control, the objective press must
eliminate any organizing philosophies or social commitments from influencing the news.”37
Kaplan concludes that “in this fashion, the rarified ethic of objectivity seeks a high degree of differentiation from the polity, economy, and, as some have charged, from the general value
commitments of the society.”38 In Kaplan’s view objectivity means that a journalist tries to
32 Michael M. Grynbaum, ”Fox News Drops ‘Fair and Balanced’ Motto,” The New York Times, June 14, 2017,
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/business/media/fox-news-fair-and-balanced.html?_r=0 (accessed June 15, 2017).
33 Andrew Calcutt and Phillip Hammond, Journalism Studies: A Critical Introduction (London and New York:
Taylor & Francis Group, 2011), 98.
34 Michael Schudson, Discovering the News, 5.
35 Richard Kaplan, “The Origins of Objectivity in American Journalism,” in The Routledge Companion to News
and Journalism, 27
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become an information gathering machine devoid of any and all ideology, beliefs and values. It should be noted that Kaplan offers his definition as an ideal description of objectivity, something to strive to instead of being a strict set of rules. It is as Schudson called it the “ideal of objectivity.”39 Kaplan places impartiality, also called neutrality by others, at the core of
objectivity, what does it mean to be impartial as a journalist?
As Kaplan stated, impartiality refers to journalists acting independently from political actors and ideologies as well as actively refraining from supporting or denouncing these same political actors and ideologies. Moreover, in the United Kingdom impartiality “is demanded of regulated British broadcasting.” 40 For the BBC this means that topics and sensitive issues
should be reported on in such a way that any signification of partiality should be reduced to great extent. However, broadcasting agencies and other news agencies often deploy more activities than solely the conveyance of facts. Those same agencies want to ignite debate and gain information through the questioning and interviewing of politicians who, for a great deal, make important decisions about societal problems. A broadcasting agency can hardly be referred to as impartial if they only question politicians of a certain party. Therefore, when partiality is necessary for a news item it should be balanced.
Balance often refers to an unbiased style of reporting. This means that in conflicts and political disagreements, equal opportunity should be given to the different sides to explain their stances and their opinions on matters. In the case of politics this refers to giving equal attention to different parties and politicians. In the case of global conflict it means that differing sides of conflicts should be given equal attention. Balance is seen as an integral part of objective reporting. David Ryfe states that “all journalists strive for balance in a homogeneous news
environment.”41 He came to this conclusion by comparing different studies that looked at the
homogeneity of news reporting.42 According to Ryfe, the rise of homogeneity can be described
through new institutionalism theory.43 Ryfe states that new institutionalism theory follows a set
of principles. The first principle is that macro-level forces influence micro-level action.44 The
second principle is that institutions evolve in a path-dependent manner as “ actors have an
incentive to adapt to prevailing conditions rather than seek to change the institutional order.”45
39 Michael Schudson, Discovering the News, 3.
40 John Wilson, Understanding Journalism: A Guide to Issues (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), 39. 41 David Ryfe, “Guest Editor's Introduction: New Institutionalism and the News,” Political Communication 23,
no. 2 (2006): 135.
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The third principle states that due to path-dependency timing is important as initial events have greater impacts then later events.46 The fourth principle states that it is possible to apply periodization as timing is present, this means that important events in the developments on
institutions can be marked.47 The fifth principle states that institutions will reproduce without
shocks to those same institutions.48 Timothy Cook and Bartholomew Sparrow have applied
these principles to the development of journalistic practices. They claim that journalism itself is an institution that has embedded within itself certain practices and routines such as “balance,
detachment, objectivity, the inverted pyramid style of writing.”49 I have established that
impartiality and neutrality are important aspects of being objective. It means that a journalist refrains from being biased towards certain values and ideologies. It also means that there should be a balance of representation of these different values and ideologies when discussing political and social issues. Another important aspect of objectivity mentioned by Cook and Sparrow is detachment.
Andrew Calcutt and Philip Hammond describe detachment in the following words: “a dispassionate approach that separates fact from comment and allows news audiences to make
up their minds about events rather than being offered a journalist’s own response.”50
Detachment is very much interrelated with neutrality as it disapproves of any judgment made by the journalist. Nevertheless, detachment seems to be more focused on emotional biases by journalists instead of argumentative biases. An emotional attachment to conflicts can even become dangerous for the journalists involved, as was seen in 2012 when the Sunday Times
war correspondent Marie Colvin was killed in Homs.51 According to Brendan O’Neill her death
was an example of what could happen when journalists perform “journalism of attachment.”52
Journalism of attachment was described by its founder Martin Bell, a BBC war correspondent,
“as journalism which cares as well as knows.”53 Colvin would often immerse herself in conflicts
not shying away from siding with one the conflicting parties in war situations. Journalism of attachment is often done in order to nudge Western countries to become involved in conflicts. Bell claimed that it was journalism of attachment that made England and France “launch a
46 David Ryfe, “Guest Editor's Introduction: New Institutionalism and the News,” 137. 47 Ibid., 137.
48 Ibid., 138. 49 Ibid., 138.
50 Andrew Calcutt and Phillip Hammond, Journalism Studies, 8.
51 Brendan O'Neill, “Dangers of the journalism of attachment,” ABC Australia, February 24, 2012,
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-24/oneill-dangers-of-the-journalism-of-attachment/3850566 (accessed May 2, 2017).
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bombing campaign in Syria.”54 Nevertheless, Colvin paid for it with her life. While this
example might be extreme in that it takes place in a war situation it shows the danger of becoming attached to particular sides in a conflict as a journalist. Bell himself was involved in the conflict in Bosnia in the 1990’s. During the conflict he actively promoted the idea that
foreign nations should intervene in the conflict as atrocities were committed on a daily basis.55
Bell defended the idea that through attachment journalists could and should become part of a conflict in order to display the atrocities of way. Journalism of attachment does not only occur to individual journalists who happen to adhere to such a style of journalism. Journalism of attachment can also occur on a larger scale. Nel Ruigrok in her study on Dutch journalism of attachment during the Bosnian conflict clearly shows that the journalists at the major Dutch
news sources were actively performing journalism of attachment.56 Her content analysis shows
that newspapers were actively designating people as ‘bad guys’ and ‘good guys’. Some newspapers were actively selecting the types of stakeholders that they would represent in their articles, often belonging to one side of the conflict, while other newspapers were actively calling
for military intervention.57 This shows that journalism of attachment during wartimes can occur
on a systemic scale too. Martin Conboy states that “War reporting has become perhaps the ultimate arena in which journalism’s moral duties and the high ethical claims for its own
distinctiveness can be tested.”58 Eventually attachment can create situation in which journalists
have to choose between representing facts in an objective way and neglecting relevant truths in order to protect or defend the sides, parties, politicians they are attached to. Truthfulness, neutrality and detachment are important pillars of objectivity and as such of journalism.
Gaye Tuchman takes the argument of objectivity ever further. Tuchman argues that objectivity also serves as a technique of self-defense for many journalists and news agencies. Tuchman explains that when news articles have the potential of harming businesses and
organizations that these some institutions have the option to sue the newspaper for libel.59 In
order to avoid such libel suits which can significantly hamper the production of news and as such hamper income, journalists take up, what Tuchman calls, the “strategic ritual of
54 Brendan O'Neill, “Dangers of the journalism of attachment.”
55 John Lloyd, “Martin Bell: By proposing a "journalism of attachment," Bell led lesser reporters down a false
trail,” Prospect, February 20, 2004, https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/martinbell (accessed June 19, 2017).
56 Nel Ruigrok, “Journalism of attachment and objectivity: Dutch journalists and the Bosnian War,” Media, War
& Conflict 1, no. 3 (2008): 310.
57 Ibid., 310.
58 Martin Conboy, Journalism Studies: The Basics (London and New York: Routledge, 2013), 98.
59 Gaye Tuchman, “Objectivity as Strategic Ritual: An Examination of Newsmen's Notions of Objectivity,”
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objectivity.”60 Newsmen “assume that, if every reporter gathers and structures ‘facts’ in a
detached, un- biased, impersonal manner, deadlines will be met and libel suits avoided.”61 In
this sense, objectivity is not solely an ideal way of producing news; it is also an ideal way of protecting the journalist against risky and expensive law suits. Tuchman states that newsmen have to balance their writing and reporting between two extremes. On the one hand is “absurdity” which refers to questioning every single aspect of a story if it has not been checked extensively; the other extreme is “libel” when journalists do not do enough
fact-checking and might risk promulgating lies and untruthfulness.62 Tuchman identifies four
strategies taken up by journalists to guarantee objectivity aside from fact-checking. The four strategies are the “presentation of conflicting possibilities, presentation of supporting evidence, [t]he judicious use of quotation marks and [s]tructuring information in an appropriate
sequence.”63 The first strategy means that a journalist her/himself cannot simply confirm
whether a claim A is true, it is possible, though, to quote source B that disproves claim A.64
This strategy is similar to the ideals of impartiality and neutrality discussed in previous sections. By giving different positions equal attention a journalist can prove and disprove claims without making claims themselves. The second strategy means that a journalist collects factual information to support a claim. The third strategy discusses the use of quotation marks. Tuchman states that “[b]y interjecting someone else's opinion, [newsmen] believe they are
removing them- selves from participation in the story, and they are letting the ‘facts’ speak.”65
The fourth strategy refers to structuring an article; a popular structure among journalists is the inverted pyramid, which suggests that with every passing paragraph in an article the importance
of information deteriorates.66 The most important information is mentioned first. These four
strategies allow journalists to claim objectivity. The conclusion that Tuchman draws is that while these strategies allow journalists to provide evidence of having attempted to be objective,
it does not necessarily mean that the strategies provide for objectivity in itself.67 Tuchman is
critical of objectivity as an ideal and rather sees it as a protection method. Tuchman is not the only author that is critical about objectivity. Geneva Overholser is a contemporary journalist who argues that objectivity is actually harming the popularity of mainstream journalism. Instead
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of criticizing the conceptions and purposes of objectivity, as Tuchman does, Overholser is criticizing the effects of objectivity.
Overholser argues that objectivity as a guiding principle for contemporary journalism is failing. She points towards declining numbers of political engagement among Western citizens
as well as the rise of attitude-driven journalism.68 The argument she is making is that objectivity
has had some harmful effects on the popularity of mainstream journalism. Overholser states that “[objectivity] often produces a report bound in rigid orthodoxy, a deplorably narrow product of conventional thinking; the cowardly, credulous and provincial coverage leading up
to the Iraq War was a spectacular example.”69 She establishes that the current fastest-growing
media sectors have a viewpoint.70 A viewpoint can be ethnic, political, issue-driven or religious.
Overholser’s suggestion is to adopt these non-objective manners of producing journalistic work. She states that “the mainstream media wise enough to let the fresh air [read viewpoints] in, rather than fearfully shutting it out, will gain in clarity, strength and purposefulness from the
democratization and the questioning and critiques that accompany the transition.”71 Letting go
of objectivity does not mean that journalists are off the hook when it comes to fair and balanced reporting. She states that “it is deceit that is wrong—the false presentation of one’s intentions.
No one should be allowed to get away with hoodwinking the news consumer.”72She goes on
to say that accountability becomes even more important when objectivity is no longer the
“byword.”73 Overholser is proposing to shift the focus of journalism towards a more subjective
approach. An approach that tries to affirm the inherit values of its audiences. That same audience would then be more attracted to consume those types of journalistic goods. Subjective reporting is not a new phenomenon as following paragraphs will explain that it is probably one of the earliest style of reporting in journalism. The eventual goal would be an increase in political engagement. Another distinct criticism of objectivity is theorized by Noam Chomsky. Chomsky places economic incentives at the heart of the production of news instead of objective principles.
Chomsky points towards the increasing influence of corporate and economic power to explain the ways in which journalism and the media express their news coverage. Chomsky has constructed the propaganda model, “an analytical framework that attempts to explain the
68 Geneva Overholser, “The Inadequacy of Objectivity as a Touchstone,” NiemanReports, December 15, 2004,
http://niemanreports.org/articles/the-inadequacy-of-objectivity-as-a-touchstone/ (accessed May 3, 2017).
69 ibid.
70 Geneva Overholser, “The Inadequacy of Objectivity as a Touchstone,” (accessed May 3, 2017). 71 Ibid.
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performance of the U.S. media in terms of the basic institutional structures and relationships
within which they operate.”74 Chomsky makes the argument that “neoliberal ideology has
provided the intellectual rationale for policies that have opened up the ownership of
broadcasting stations and cable and satellite systems to private transnational investors.”75 The
propaganda model proposed by Chomsky works in such a way that different filters are applied to the production of news, these filters consists of the following aspects:
“(1) The size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth, and profit orientation of the dominant mass-media firms; (2) advertising as the primary income source of the mass media; (3) the reliance of the media on information provided by government, business, and “experts” funded and approved by these primary sources and agents of power; (4) “flak” as a means of disciplining the media; and (5) “anticommunism”
as a national religion and control mechanism.”76
Before the finished news product reaches its audience, according to Chomsky, it has to pass through these filters first. These filters are not obvious and apparent instruments, rather they function in a subtle way, “so naturally that media news people, frequently operating with complete integrity and goodwill, are able to convince themselves that they choose and interpret
the news “objectively” and on the basis of professional news values.”77 Most filters in
Chomsky’s model focus on financial incentives. The first filter is one of business interests. Chomsky establishes that many media firms are actually large corporations aimed at profit
maximization.78 These economic interests serve as a filter in such a way that it does not allow
for any news that might harm the economic interests of such media companies.79 The second
filter points to similar problems in that advertising is a main source of income for media
companies.80 It is so important that producing news material that might actually be very
important to a society is neglected in favor of more airtime for advertisements.81 Chomsky tries
to show that commercial incentives provide important guiding principles for journalistic work. Contrary to Overholser though, the incentives put forward by Chomsky operate in a much more
74 Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media
(New York: Pantheon Books, 2002), XI.
75 Ibid., XI.
76 Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent, 2. 77 Ibid., 2.
78 Ibid., 13 – 14. 79 Ibid., 18.
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subtle manner, nearly invisible to the journalist her- or himself. Nevertheless it shows that news can also be guided by economic principles aside from objectivity and subjectivity. Schudson points to the same economic incentives in Discovering the News when he states that “objectivity is a peculiar demand to make of institutions which, as business corporations, are dedicated first
of all to economic survival.”82 So where do these alternative interpretations of producing news
leave objectivity?
Wolfgang Donsbach separates the traditions of journalism among similar traditions as the ones mentioned in the previous paragraphs. The style of journalism put forward by Geneva
Overholser is comparable to the “subjective tradition.”83 Donsbach describes the subjective
tradition as a tradition that favors opinion over facts and as a tradition that is more orientated
towards political action instead of mediation of facts and events.84 He claims that this is one of
the earliest traditions of journalism.85 The adoption of viewpoints discussed by Overholser
together with a more partisan stance might be similar to this subjective tradition. Objectivity as discussed in great detail in this section would fit within the “public service tradition” of
Donsbach.86 Donsbach uses the definition of the public service tradition from Barnhurst and
Owens who define journalism as “telling about events, supplying novelty, and, from the
process, discerning factual truth.”87 Donsbach goes on to claim that neutrality is a key aspect
of public service tradition as it is in objectivity.88 The third tradition is called the “commercial
tradition” as it focuses on the economic interests of the people who own news companies.89
This tradition is more concerned with selling news as a product of profit maximization. The commercial tradition adheres to many of the arguments put forward by Noam Chomsky in Manufacturing Consent in that financial stimuli are what guides journalistic production. Now that three traditions of journalism have been explored it is important to discuss which of these traditions is dominant in the context of the United States as it is this country in particular that this thesis focuses on.
Donsbach and Bettina Klett performed an empirical study which asked journalists across
82 Michael Schudson, Discovering the News, 3.
83 Wolfgang Donsbach, “Journalists and their Professional Identities,” in The Routledge Companion to News and
Journalism, ed. Stuart Allen (London and New York: Routledge, 2012), 41.
84 Wolfgang Donsbach, “Journalists and their Professional Identities,” 39 – 41. 85 Ibid., 39.
86 Ibid., 41.
87 Kevin Barnhurst and James Owens, “Journalism,” in The International Encyclopedia of Communication, ed.
Wolfgang Donsbach (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008), 2557.
88 Wolfgang Donsbach, “Journalists and their Professional Identities,” in The Routledge Companion to News and
Journalism, 39.
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four countries about their conception of objectivity. The four countries involved in their research are Germany, Italy, The United Kingdom and The United States. They sent questionnaires to 600 journalists per country. The journalists surveyed had to be journalists
concerned with the daily production of news.90 The journalists were spread over different
disciplines such as radio journalism, television journalism and newspaper journalism.91 From
the 600 journalists per country different amounts sent a response to the researchers. From Germany they received 338 responses; they got 292 responses from Italy, 216 from The United
Kingdom and 278 from The United States.92 The respondents were allowed to rate different
values of news reporting.
“The five values included no subjectivity (good news reporting does not allow the journalist’s own political beliefs to affect the presentation of the subject), fair representation (good news reporting expresses fairly the position of each side in a political dispute), fair skepticism (good news reporting requires an equally thorough questioning of the position of each side in a political dispute), hard facts (good news reporting goes beyond the statements of the contending sides to the hard facts of a political dispute) and value judgment (good news reporting makes clear which side in a political dispute has the better position).”93
They found the following about journalists who gave the highest possible agreement scores (7 out of 7) to these five values: “For the U.S. and the British journalists the first four items are equally important parts of quality news. To try not to be subjective, to make public the viewpoints of officials, to question thoroughly but fairly their positions, and to go beyond statements to the ’hard facts’ is mentioned by roughly three out of four U.S. and British journalists.”94 “Only a small minority of 4 (Britain: 8) percent holds that value judgments
should be made in news reporting.”95 The conclusion clearly indicates that factual reporting is
favored over passing value judgments which is often preferred in the subjective tradition. When asked which of the five values comes closest to the US journalist’s idea of good news reporting
only 1% said value judgment was closest to their interpretation of good news reporting.96 40%
90 Wolfgang Donsbach and Bettina Klett, “Subjective objectivity: How Journalists in Four Countries Define a Key
Term of their Profession,” International Communication Gazette 51, no. 1 (1993): 61.
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of the US journalists reported fair representation to be closest to their interpretation, 22% said no subjectivity was closest, 28% adhered to hard facts and only 9% recognized themselves best
in fair skepticism.97 What can be concluded from this research is that aspects such as neutrality,
balance and truthfulness are favored heavily over passing judgment among US journalists. According to this empirical study, objectivity, as discussed in this section, is the dominant journalistic principle in the United States. This dominance is further enforced by Kaplan who states the following:
“Objectivity operates as something akin to the lifeblood of the US press; certainly, there exist discordant strands, deviant models, and alternative practices in American journalism – from community papers and journals of opinion to trade publications, minority weeklies, and advertising puff sheets – but they form largely invisible,
undiscussed, or else derides alternatives to the dominant paradigm.”98
The commercial tradition has received less attention than subjective and public service traditions. Nevertheless, increasingly more research is done that show that economic incentives are gaining in importance. In order to gain wider audiences, more and more journalists are being told by superiors to change aspects of their stories harming the independence of the journalist
itself.99 As mentioned before, objectivity remains a fluid concept. In order to better understand
how it rose to dominance it is important to consider its historical roots
97 Wolfgang Donsbach and Bettina Klett, “Subjective objectivity,” 66.
98 Richard Kaplan, “The Origins of Objectivity in American Journalism,” in The Routledge Companion to News
and Journalism, 26.
99 Wolfgang Donsbach, “Journalists and their Professional Identities,” in The Routledge Companion to News and
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1.3 THE HISTORY OF OBJECTIVITY
Objectivity has not always been the leading principle in US journalistic practices. 19th century
US press was deeply entrenched in political partisanship. Objectivity as a term was not known back then, rather subjectivity was the norm. This section will briefly explore this partisan press. Nevertheless, as time progressed, so did the ideal of journalistic reporting. At the end of the nineteenth century, subjectivity slowly began to make place for more popular ideals of objectivity and fact-seeking. Realignment theory is often offered as an explanatory theory for the shift in journalistic identity. Such a theory can be beneficial in explaining the rise of fake news as a powerful phenomenon. Nevertheless, before it is possible to make that claim it is important to make a sketch of nineteenth century reporting.
In the 1800s the US press was very much involved with partisanship in that it was standard practice for journalists to actively support or denounce political candidates and parties. Hazel Dicken-Garcia states that “those aspiring to a journalistic career in the era of the political
press found that the surest route was through political sagacity.”100 This statement does not
simply imply that journalists had political preferences and shared them with their audiences; it also implies that the careers journalists depended on those same political affiliations. Garcia further elaborates: “If they wanted to advance in journalism, political activity was the way to gain attention; if they sought financial success in their careers, political affiliation – although not perfectly reliable – offered the most certain means; if they sought visibility and influence,
the paths to follow were political.”101 Politics and the media were conjoined entities
representing the same system of power, namely the political institutions. As these two entities were conjoined, so were their interests. Journalists had no interest in critically following the same institution that provided their bread and butter. Instead, those same journalists were busy with enforcing and strengthening political institutions and actors. Richard Kaplan provides two examples which exemplify the profound partisanship found among newspapers in the nineteenth century. The first text is found in the Detroit Post advertising in 1872 expressing support for the Republican Party: “The Post has no sympathy with the sickly inanity that the
Republican Party has accomplished its mission.”102 It goes on to state that “[n]o party has ceased
to be useful while it retained the vitality which initiates all the practical reforms of its age and
100 Hazel Dickens-Garcia, Journalistic Standards in Nineteenth-Century America (London: University of
Wisconsin Press, 1989), 46.
101 Ibid., 47.
102 Post, July 11, 1872, cited in Richard Kaplan, Politics and the American press (Cambridge: Cambridge
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it is the crowning glory of the organizations which has done so much for the country…”103
Kaplan notes, that as a response, the Detroit Free Press, the competitor of the Detroit Post,
“asserted that it would provide proper ideological guidance to all Democrats.”104 They did so
by publishing the following text in their prospectus: “The Free Press alone in this State is able to combine a Democratic point of view of our state politics and local issues with those of
national importance.”105 These texts show how local newspapers were divided across partisan
lines. The texts oppose objective principles such as neutrality and detachment. What developments eventually gave rise to the popularity of objectivity as an opposing force against partisanship?
Kaplan tracks down the source of transformation to 1896 and the Presidential election
of that year. The election was what Kaplan called a “critical realigning election.”106 Kaplan
borrows the concept from Walter Burnham, who – in The Current Crisis in American Politics – writes that a “realignment cycle precipitates massive grassroots changes in voting behavior
and results in a new coalition pattern for each of the parties.”107 The 1896 election between the
Democrat Williams Jennings Bryan and the Republican William McKinley proved to be such a realignment election. Under Bryan the Democratic Party changed tremendously, and it changed in such a way that the partisan press that would usually dutifully report on partisan
Democratic news was now turning away from that same Democratic Party.108 The reason for
these shifting alliances was found in the support of Bryan for US farmers who were harmed by economic measures. These Southern farmers were slowly building alliances and political power
in order to influence the decision-making process.109 They eventually managed to be the
deciding vote in making Bryan the winning candidate of the Democratic primaries.110 His
candidacy, however, turned away many traditional Democratic voters who believed Bryan to
be a populist.111 It also turned away traditional Democratic newspapers. These newspapers saw
their party change in such a way that they were no longer able to identify themselves with the
103 Post, July 11, 1872, 22.
104 Richard Kaplan, Politics and the American Press: The Rise of Objectivity, 1865 – 1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2002), 23.
105 “The Opening of the Fall Campaign,” Free Press, May 7, 1868, cited in Richard Kaplan, Politics and the
American press (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 23.
106 Richard Kaplan, Politics and the American Press: The Rise of Objectivity, 1865 – 1920, 140.
107 Walter Dean Burnham, The Current Crisis in American Politics (New York and Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1982), 100.
108 Richard Kaplan, Politics and the American Press: The Rise of Objectivity, 1865 – 1920, 143. 109 Ibid., 143.
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values and ideas associated with the Democratic Party under Bryan.112 The issue of currency
reform affected the Republican Party in the same manner, although not as extreme. Some Republican newspapers such as the Tribune were rescinding their alliance with the Republican
Party.113 How did the media recover from this realignment? As electoral groups were now adrift
and changing allegiances, so too were the media, looking for new ways to legitimate itself. The early twentieth century offered new ideas for the press to embrace, these ideas originated mainly from the Progressive political reform movement. One of the main ideas taken from the progressive movement was that idea that “journalists should be technical experts freed from the contamination of politics.”114 Kaplan states that “the dailies were to represent no
particular political interests, but rather, the general public good; their remuneration would come only from the profits to be gained by general service to the reading public, not partial political
communities.”115 The press was able to construct a new narrative of legitimization that was able
to function without partisan bonds. This new narrative would become known as objectivity. The press shifted its focus to the mediation of information between the government and the people, instead of being a tool for political parties to present their ideology and stances on issues. Two events made this shift possible, namely the realigning election of 1896 and the rise of progressive politics and ideals at the beginning of the twentieth century.
112 Richard Kaplan, Politics and the American Press: The Rise of Objectivity, 1865 – 1920, 144. 113 Ibid., 144.
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1.4 CHAPTER ONE CONCLUSION
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CHAPTER II: FAKE NEWS
Now that factual news has been sufficiently defined it is possible to further explore the theory and definitions surrounding the opposition, fake news. This chapter looks to explain where true news ends and fake news starts. Before getting into the nitty-gritty it is important to consider that, just as is the case with true news, fake news is not an agreed upon term when it comes to its definition. It is possible though, through excluding existing genres and definitions to create an exclusive definition of fake news.
The level of factuality can form a starting point for fake news to build on. As mentioned in the introduction of chapter one, fake news can be considered the binary opposition of factual news. By exploring some current definitions of fake news used in research I will establish that fake news revolves around fabricated stories that have little basis in facts. With an established basis it is possible to add certain characteristics to fake news. Many discussions focus on the idea that fake news is designed as political punditry aimed at convincing the reader of certain ideologies and values. This idea will be explored in section two. This section will shortly discuss how fake news might have a subjective style of telling stories and news events. The third section will explore another broadly discussed aspect of fake news, namely its origins and quality of reporting.
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2.1 TELLING LIES
This section will explore the presence of non-factual information, or lies, in fake news. In order to do further analysis on the concept of fake it is necessary to have a basis to work on. This section will establish that factuality provides an interesting basis for further characterization. In chapter one, I have already established some philosophical markers of truth-telling; these markers will form a useful basis for the development of a definition of fake news as lacking factual information. As scholarly work on fake news is sparse at present, most used sources will be articles and essays. Many articles mention the issue of factuality as I will demonstrate in this section.
Fake news is often seen as the binary opposition of factual news. This thesis has also established that an important feature of factual news is truth-telling. If truth-telling is an important aspect of factual news, than writing non-factual information could be an important aspect of fake news. This viewpoint is supported by Hunt Alcott and Matthew Gentzkow who give the following definition of fake in their research on the influence of fake news on the 2016 election: “We define [‘]fake news[‘] to be news articles that are intentionally and verifiably
false, and could mislead readers.”116 They go on to state: “Our definition includes intentionally
fabricated news articles. It also includes many articles that originate on satirical websites but could be misunderstood as factual, especially when viewed in isolation on Twitter or Facebook feeds.”117 The topic of satire will return later in the chapter; nevertheless, it is interesting to see
that their starting definition of fake news is that it is fabricated. Another important term in their definition of fake news is ‘intentional’ as it suggests that fake news is not an earnest mistake made by a journalist. Such mistakes can occur when journalists fail to do significant fact-checking or forget to find a reasonable amount of independent sources, most often a minimum
of two.118 Moreover, these mistakes are often corrected in later editions of news magazines or
directly through the internet. Alcott and Gentzkow suggest that intentional fabricated lies form
the heart of fake news.
Fact-checking websites, such as Snopes and PolitiFact use gradient scales to determine
the truth value of news articles. For Snopes the scale ranges from ‘true’ to ‘false’.119 The ‘mostly
false’ and ‘false’ “rating indicates that the primary elements of a claim are demonstrably
116 Hunt Allcott and Matthew Gentzkow, “Social Media and Fake News in the 2016
Election,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 31, no. 2 (2017): 213.
117 Ibid., 214.
118 Dale Jacquette, Journalistic Ethics, 23 – 24.
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false.”120 Snopes works by doing research into the sources cited in articles, if they are unable to
reach the sources directly they will do their own independent research by looking into “non-partisan information and data sources (e.g., peer-reviewed journals, government agency statistics) as much as possible.” PolitiFact uses a similar but somewhat different scale. Their
scale runs from ‘true’ to ‘pants on fire’.121 Their ‘mostly false’ category “contains an element
of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression.”122 It is not until the
‘false’ and ‘pants of fire’ category that articles are not considered accurate; nevertheless, PolitiFact also places factuality at the heart of their analysis.123 These websites consider truthfulness as the most important aspect in referring to articles as true or false.
BuzzFeed is another organization who has done research into the issue of fake news. They have created a dataset by logging every single post made by nine different Facebook pages of different news websites. Six websites were divided along partisan lines, three websites were considered to belong to the mainstream media. They eventually set out to fact-check each article that they had collected. I will shed more light on the details of the creation of this dataset, but what is interesting is the definition they used to describe fake or false news. Their ‘mostly false’ category is defined as follows: “Most or all of the information in the post or in the link being
shared is inaccurate. This should also be used when the central claim being made is false.”124
Fact-checking websites and scientific research focuses mostly on the factual content to establish a basis for fake news. How do other media define the neologism?
The producer of CBS’s 60 minutes, Guy Campanile, defines fake news as follows: “’What we are talking about are stories that are fabricated out of thin air,’ says 60 Minutes producer Guy Campanile. ‘By most measures, deliberately, and by any definition, that’s a
lie’.”125 There is a pattern arising from these different definitions. Moreover, it is a definition
that I want to base my analysis of fake news on. This is not to say that this thesis will silence
120 “Transparency: Sources,” Snopes, http://www.snopes.com/sources/ (accessed May 10, 2017).
121 PolitiFact, November 1, 2013,
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2013/nov/01/principles-politifact-punditfact-and-truth-o-meter/ (accessed May 10, 2017).
122 Bill Adair and Angie Drobnic Holan, “The Principles of PolitiFact, PunditFact and the Truth-O-Meter,”
POLITIFICACT, February 21, 2011, http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2011/feb/21/principles-truth-o-meter/ (accessed May 10, 2017).
123 Ibid., (accessed May 10, 2017).
124 Craig Silverman, Laura Strapagiel, Hamza Shaban, Ellie Hall and Jeremy Singer-Vine, “Hyperpartisan
Facebook Pages Are Publishing False and Misleading Information At An Alarming Rate,” BuzzFeed News, October 20, 2016,
https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/partisan-fb-pages-analysis?utm_term=.xdBLXqkg2#.ctzJeZBMA (accessed May 10, 2017).
125 “What's "fake news"? 60 Minutes producers investigate,” 60 Minutes Overtime, March 26, 2017,
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dissenting opinions, these dissenting opinions will get full attention ahead.
As sport news is defined by the presence of the topic of sport, as entertainment news discusses entertainment, and business news talks about business, so too must fake news be grounded upon certain criteria that define its identity as a genre. Before doing further analysis on the genre of fake news it is important to be clear about its foundations, namely that fake news discusses fake topics; with fake I refer to the oppositional explanation of truth-telling. Fake news thus refers to news that contains intentionally created propositions which are verifiably false. As such fake news shows no coherence to the correspondence theory of truth defined in chapter one. It is this definition that will expand the topic of fake news to further elaboration of its characteristics and textual markers, the same types of research questions that other news genres are subjected to.126 In the following section I will explore some of these characteristics often ascribed to fake news aside from its basis in being non-factual. These characteristics are not randomly selected; rather they form the binary opposition of many of the characteristics of factual news. These characteristics include the level of subjectivity and bias of fake news as well as its apparent textual similarity to true news. After these characteristics have been described I will look at other genres and definitions of news to exemplify that many contemporary alternative definitions of fake news do not provide a sufficient basis for further discussion.
