Media and Democracy: Finding Facts in the Mess of Misinformation | Lisa Remillard | TEDxBillings

opinions aren't facts feelings aren't facts just because it's a fact you don't like doesn't make it fake real journalists are not your enemy but misinformation is so start with the facts first first now I know that's a lot of information coming at you all at once but all of those things are critical for you to carry with you every single day especially in this modern era when we talk about the media and the role it plays in our democracy now I'm sure some of you are already starting to squirm in your seats wondering what side

of the aisle is this journalist on so you can decide whether what I have to say is worth your time wow well I am about to tell you has nothing to do with politics so you can all just relax my name is Lisa rard I've been a professional journalist for 21 years most of that time I spent on TV reporting local news and then I made the transition in 2018 to start reporting the news independently on social media now being in the news business for more than 20 years has really given me a front row

seat to not only see but to be part of the media Evolution I've watched watched it shape our democracy and I'm sure you feel it right now too polarization in this country has gotten so bad we have gotten so entrenched in our sides that at this point it's very difficult for us to even have an honest conversation with each other about the basic facts it should be a red flag when someone starts to scream fake news simply because it's information and including facts that they don't like or facts that don't confirm what they already believe

now here's the thing that fake news mentality filters into our democracy and ultimately impacts how our government works for all of us yes the media is to blame for all of this but I'm talking all media broadcast TV cable TV radio newspapers social media all part the problem now I'm going to tell you something that you might not want to hear but it's possible that you may also be to blame for some of this we as the viewers the listeners and the consumers of all this media have to take some responsibility for what's going on

now as a journalist I can tell you the reality is democracy and the media go hand inand one cannot fully exist without the other a functioning democracy a constitutional republic which is what we have in the United States needs a functioning and Free Press to bring things that are hidden in the shadows out into the light and needs its citizens to be able to say what they want about those things that's what the First Amendment does for all of us it gives us all that right we have the freedom of speech the freedom of press

the freedom to have a different opinion and the freedom to criticize our government openly and loudly and boy have we been doing that a lot lately but a lot has changed in our country since the first amendment was ratified way back in 1791 long gone are the days when a printing press is the only way for us to share information journalists turn to radios then they turn television then they turn to cable and now everyone uses social media to share information and at this point we have so much information so many opinions and the ability

to pick and choose and spread that information so widely and easily this is what the Constitution and the Bill of Rights intended for all of us to be informed this is how it should be but there is definitely a downside to all this information blame it on money blame it on lack of Education blame it on human nature blame it on the media take your pick but there are a lot of incentives for a lot of people to embellish or simply make stuff up for clicks and ratings misinformation sells it's worth a lot of money

it spreads faster than the truth it gets people more fired up now I see this on a pretty large scale every single day so for for years I interacted with large television audiences and now I interact with my more than 3 million followers every single day I report on the facts and the news that actually impacts your everyday life so I see misinformation everywhere I watch it fly around the internet and I watch really smart people fall for it every single day and from my perspective when you boil it down the problem is actually pretty

simple the collective we forgot to give the critical thinking tools to the people who are consuming all of this media that they need they cannot decipher what's real and what's not what's opinion and what's fact and because of that we're here with a First Amendment L an electorate that in a lot of cases doesn't understand the basics or can't sort through the volume of information and misinformation they ingest every day and in that confused and chaotic state of mind that same electorate then goes to the polls which impacts elections and ultimately influences democracy and the

way the government works for every single American so you're probably wondering what are these critical thinking tools that the audience is missing how do we get this train back on track well don't look at me I certainly don't have all the answers but if you'll indulge me I'll share with you what I share with others who ask me how to handle misinformation you've actually already heard me say it it's what I started with today you have to have the mindset of opinions aren't facts feelings aren't facts just because it's a fact you don't like doesn't

make it fake or wrong real journalists are aren't your enemy but misinformation and the people who spread it are so you really need to start with the facts first now I know that sounds really basic and easy but when you start to add your bias to the equation and your feelings and what you really want to believe in your heart and soul some of those things can be really hard to do because for this to work you can't just take in some of the facts you have to take in all of them now I talked

about a red flag before it should be a red flag to you if you find yourself only consuming information that you like or only consuming information that you agree agree with that should set off alarm bells in your head it should be your sign that maybe you want to check out another source for that same information you might want to check out a few more sources now I get that we're all busy people and we're all juggling a million things all at the same time and digging around for original Source material takes time and effort

and who wants to do that besides me of course it's just easier for most people to get information from the sources they already like from the people they already like I totally get that that's what makes social media specifically so alluring it's quick and it's easy we see a headline or a video from a source that we really want to believe we form a very strong opinion based on that one piece of information or video then like a game of telephone we feel the uncontrollable urge to share that very strong opinion with everyone on the

internet and then before you know it your strong opinion based on that one piece of information not the whole story starts to snowball and other people watching your content do do the exact same thing you are by forming their own strong opinions based on your strong opinions based on one little piece of information that may or may not be true you see how that works and that stuff just adds up in your brain whether it's true or not that's what people take with them into the voting booth but here's a little something I want you

to keep in mind next time you come across a video piece of news piece of information I want you to remember the headline line is not the story believe it that or not that came as a surprise to a lot of people when I told them they didn't even realize it so in the newspaper business it's called a headline in the TV news business we call it a lead on the internet sometimes people call it clickbait so a lead clickbait a headline is only meant to catch your attention it is meant to stir up an

emotion in you and that emotion is meant to move you to the action of reading watching or listening to the whole story a headline is not meant for you to form an opinion based on that one little piece of information headlines were never intended to give you the whole story but the whole story is where the facts live and while we're at it you want to know what else is not the whole story a meme you see on the internet right you guys know what I'm talking about a clip or a sound bite with absolutely

no context anything can be manipulated that way now I'm going to date myself here but when I was a kid uh we obviously had newspapers and radios I'm not that old but I vividly remember when it came to television we only had ABC NBC and CBS and then Fox and the CW came along a little later on in my childhood and if you were really lucky you got to have cable so growing up broadcast new news came on in the morning in the afternoon at 6:00 p.m. and then 11:00 p.m. at night now news was

on TV in my house in fact that is where my love of news came from I wanted to be a reporter from a very young age but when I was a kid we only watched the news in my house in the morning and then maybe we would watch it when my dad came home from work and then my parents would watch it after I went to bed and looking back on that time as a journalist now compared to what we have today the news on TV back then was finite it was a 30 minute broadcast

it was an hourong broadcast it was a newspaper you read in the morning and then by lunchtime it was in the trash most people watched read or listened to the news sort of in small doses the latest breaking news wasn't popping up all the time when you're watching on your phone or in your social media feed none of that was even a thing and when the news cycle really became a 24-hour hour a day machine that added so much more news volume and content to the world and when that happened all of us in the

TV business added a layer of confusion for all of you viewers we needed to fill those 24 hours a day with something so I'm going to let you in on a little TV secret here there's not enough interesting news to fill 24 hours so instead we filled it by bringing on commentators and analysts to share their expertise and their perspectives on the news but we confused you by putting them in the same TV screen as a journalist and we did not make it abundantly clear that those other people were not journalists those other people are

there to share their opinions they are not there to give you neutral information sometimes they're there just to be loud and just to stir the pot sometimes most of the time they do give you some good context to the news they do give you some insight into what's going on but in the end it's still just their opinion now I have been ragging on my profession pretty hard here today so I want to make sure I get this in as well the reality is there are amazing talented ethics bound true journalists who do give you

the facts at every single newspaper radio TV station every one of the big cable news outlets I know I've worked with them all there are wonderful people in its simplest terms a real journalist is going to give you the who what when where why and how of every single story and it's going to attribute every single thing he or she says or writes because anything outside of that is specul ation and opinion real hardworking journalists do exist we are alive and well I promise you but a lot of the times we get overshadowed by the

more flashy loud opinionated people that you see on TV or online who drive higher click counts and higher ratings and that brings me to the space I currently occupy which is a journalist reporting facts and news about politics on the internet brutal I know but I love what I do the internet is the Wild Wild West there are a lot of people who appear very credible with huge online audiences reporting the news and acting as a source for news almost none of them are trained journalists a blogger an influencer a random person regurgitating some information

that she or he saw or heard these people are not trained to give you neutral information and if you allowing an algorithm to feed you news from these people that's absolutely fine but you need to as my mom would say put your thinking cap on when you watch them or listen to them you need to ask yourself where are they getting this information is it a fact or is it their opinion if they claim to be getting the information from an article well what article is it is it coming from a reputable Source or is

it coming from a bogus misinformation machine are you getting both sides of the argument or are you only just getting one even worse are you being told or influenced to feel a certain way about that information so the answers to those questions will help you figure out if you're getting neutral information now I get it that's an extra step and when you're trying to just you know mindlessly scroll on the internet to go through that thinking cap process is difficult why should you right these people look credible but most of the time they're not and

the misinformation they spread gets shared millions of times because most people are just too busy to look for the source or the facts they believe it they form their own strong opinions about it which usually reinforces their existing bias and ultimately informs their voting patterns which then shapes our government now I'm going to tell you the same thing I tell my followers when they come to me asking for a fact check on some Bonkers thing they heard on the internet um the who what when where why and how is usually really boring but misinformation is

what I like to call Fantastical it is something that is going to provoke you it is going to get likes and clicks it's going to get comments and Views and ratings so if you come across information and it's starting to feel Fantastical just try go through that thinking cap process because usually if you pull just one thread you'll realize at best you're not getting the whole story and at worst the whole thing will unravel because it's straight up misinformation now I want to be very clear I am not dissuading you from watching or sharing information

online you absolutely should do that that's why we have a First Amendment and when you come across Legacy Media newspaper radio broadcast cable please don't automatically write them off as fake real journalists aren't your enemy but here's the thing the misinformation machine is not going to stop turning the 24-hour a day news cycle is not going away the internet and social media are only going to get bigger so if there's going to be a change it is going to fall on you the viewer The Listener the consumer we all have to choose to be smarter

about where we get our information with how we're taking it in with how we process that information with how we choose to share that information with the rest of the world instead of continuing down this current dark path that is only leading to more misinformed anger at each other all the time we can choose to do it differently you are democracy your voice matters a opinions aren't facts so find the facts first and use them wisely thank you [Applause]