Audience laziness and entitlement, not just technology, enable modern fake news

Evidence

From a certain perspective, isn’t objectivity and nonpartisanship an amazing thing to expect from a news source? If we look back throughout history, we realize that the rich and powerful have always had an interest (and usually a means) for getting the “little people” to think what they wanted. Before the printed word became an inexpensive source of rival information, one would not be surprised that the king—or whoever controlled the money and politics of the era—really could “create his own reality.” This is why the idea of a free media—even one polluted with fake news—was such a revolutionary (and recent) concept. But where did we get the idea that this should come at no cost to us or that we are not required to be active participants in ferreting out the truth? As we have seen, for most of its history the news media has been partisan. Pamphlets were political. Newspapers had owners with business interests and other biases. Indeed, has this ever really changed? Yet we feel entitled to objectivity and are shocked when our news sources do not provide it. But have we been supporting this expectation of fact-based nonpartisan coverage with our dollars? Or really—before the election woke us up—even paid close attention to what was being lost? It is easy to blame technology and claim that “these days it is different.” But technology has always had a role in fake news. The printing press and the telegraph each played a part in the ebb and flow of what we expect from journalism. But it has also had an effect on us too. The Internet makes it so easy (and cheap) to get news that we have gotten lazy. Our feeling of entitlement has eroded our critical thinking skills. And isn’t this at least part of what has created such a fertile environment for the reemergence of fake news? — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 212

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the premise behind Zamyatin’s ‘We’ and other laments that cheap convenience erodes vigilance; also aligns with McLuhan-era claims that media shape audiences as much as content. — connects to: Multi-platform exposure could mean daily fake news contact for average voters — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 526; Urgency, group pressure, and inattention predict fake-news sharing — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 325; Fake news technology is a neutral tool whose harm depends on human response. — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 239 (+3 more)
• SEED: Fertile essay angle: reframe fake news not as a technology problem but as an attention-and-effort contract the public stopped honoring — historicizing free press as recent, partisan norm as ancient.

Broader Connections

• Urgent threatening messages, group pressure, and shallow assessment drive fake-news sharing. #expands (0.80) — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 325
• Social media let confirmation bias drive news consumption, undercutting paid mainstream outlets #expands (0.75) — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 190
• Repeated exposure makes people find sharing misinformation less unethical #expands (0.72) — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 73