Democracy in the 21st Century demands greater media literacy

I was born in 1987, the same year the Fairness Doctrine was abolished, and the worldwide web was officially launched. Without getting too far into the details, these are two major things that have enabled the fracturing of the American media landscape.

The Fairness Doctrine’s repeal meant broadcasters no longer had to fairly present both sides of an argument, and the worldwide web has allowed any number of people to launch their own news sources, reputable, domestic, or otherwise. Frankly, I bristle whenever I hear “the media” or “mainstream media” because characterizing the media as any kind of monolith is a cringeworthy mistake. We don’t have that in the 21st century.

Our media now ranges from paranoid fantasy to vapid clickbait in every stripe of the political spectrum from left to right. We have a massive expanse of news sources, from century-old institutions to days-old Substack newsletters, vying for the attention of viewers in any way possible from Tik Tok to Telegram, and newsprint to airwaves. Often, this has led news media outlets, in hyper-competition for your attention, to cave to the powerful but misleading strategies of fulfilling confirmation bias, emotionally trolling listeners or viewers, clickbait headlines, and even outright lying (often under the guise of satire).

Unfortunately, we can’t expect the news to just “be better” or somehow change. There are still excellent news sources out there, but that doesn’t stop cheap, knock-off imitations of news from stealing the attention of unwitting consumers. Consumers are going to have to get media savvy if they really want proper news.

Spotting dirty, attention-grabbing strategies isn’t something that comes naturally at first. It’s like riding a bike. You probably already understand the basics. You might be a bit shaky at first, but eventually, you achieve a balance, pick up speed, and it’s a skill that becomes a naturally integrated part of your life, and one you don’t spend much time thinking about.

Also like riding a bike, this is a skill that, more often than not, needs to be taught.

Like, I imagine, most of you, my high school education did not include any media literacy coursework. I did not learn how to spot a reputable news source during my English classes, or even during my history classes. I didn’t learn most of this until I became a reporter. But media literacy can’t be solely the realm of the media professional any longer.

For American democracy to last, the electorate is going to need to work from a shared set of facts. It’s nearly impossible to compromise if you don’t agree on what reality is.

To do that, there are a few basic measures we all need to take. None of us should be trusting any one source. Each voter needs to learn how to tell a good source from a bad source for themselves, and that means checking them against each other sometimes.

Consumers need to learn to judge a well-reported story from a “hack job” for themselves. Are there sources cited? Is it dated? Is there an author listed who has done other reputable work?

We need to be taught how to recognize our own confirmation bias for what it is. If a news story does nothing but make you emotional, is it really news, or is it propaganda?

Most importantly, and overarchingly, we need to learn how to spot when a charlatan is lying to us to get our attention, whether it’s an internet blogger, a TV pundit, or a politician. Because if the voting public doesn’t get smart to these scammer’s tactics soon, those same scammers will be running the United States before we know it. Some of them already do.