Media Literacy - The Power (and Responsibility) of Information | Lisa Cutter | TEDxCherryCreekWomen

[Music] [Music] I believe deeply in the power of communications to change the world and as a communications professional i've been alarmed over the last several years at the proliferation of false information all over the internet you've maybe seen it as well and about during the last presidential cycle in 2016 it really reached a fever pitch people were sharing and posting things that were patently untrue and really alarming about this time one of distant family member of mine posted something about barack obama that was easily disproved it wasn't true and now mind you everyone has their

opinion in your entitled to your opinion and there's lots of reasons not to alike or agree with someone but let's not get our knickers in a knot about information that's not even real things that aren't true so i had made mistakes on the internet before i'm posting things that weren't necessarily true and people had kindly pointed it out to me so i believed that this woman would feel the same way as I did welcome the welcome the redirection and I was wrong and she no longer comes to Thanksgiving so that's what misinformation can do and

how it can harm us and I think that we live in a scary time people don't know who they can trust they don't know what they can trust and when that happens it's easy to manipulate people so I believe in the for news media as the Fourth Estate I believe like our forefathers that the news media is here to hold us accountable and to help us understand what's important and discern fact from fiction so the the media has been eroding over the last several years and there's a lot of reasons for that there's is sort

of a circular thing right fewer people read and listen to to media the less news product they can put out and then the fewer people you know fewer people read and listen so it's become a real problem and yet news media is here to help us here to provide the information we need to make the decisions that govern our lives most credible news sources will employ professional journalists journalists who adhere to a code of ethics because of their profession they do their very best to provide information that's unbiased and factual they're all human people make

mistakes but that's that's for the most part that's what they do there's yet there's been about a forty seven percent decrease in investment in news media since 2004 47 4 in news excuse me newsrooms TV there's been thirteen hundred fewer newspapers this last year 1,300 small-town newspapers shut their doors that means that 1,300 communities are not getting the information they need to govern their lives they aren't hearing about the school board they're not hearing about city council they're not the the reporters aren't asking tough questions of county and city officials people that are in charge

of things that impact lives and I think that's important I think that's very scary so there's there's plenty of ways to get news right you might be saying well I there's plenty of news online I can turn you know go on the internet and find something right away well I will have you consider that there's no barrier to entry anyone can start a digital news platform and that's okay I mean I think that we I believe deeply in the power of you know expression anyone should be able to to be out there and say share

their opinions and say what they believe in but the problem is is that we can't wait that as credible as we would a normal news source the power is within us it's really important that we pay tension and learn to discern what we can count on is fact versus opinion and so we have we have that power and it's important that we claim that so information and misinformation especially with some of these social platforms can really cause some problems because it's so easy to to have a social media platform there's been a deliberate campaign to

misinform and divide us by governments individuals entities that are seeking to create divide in our country and we can't keep letting that happen so not only can it mess with family dinners but it can also cause real problems pizza gate is an example the passed a few years ago people were trying to discredit Hillary Clinton and said that she was put out stories on several platforms and really made it look look real that she was behind a sex trafficking ring out of a operating out of a DC pizza parlor with with kids of all things

and how scary right of course it was untrue and it was easily debunked but people really bought into this and one individual actually went in and I can only assume that you know he was doing what he thought was heroic and went in and shot up a pizza parlor where people go to eat pizza for goodness sake go to have dinner and could have really hurt someone and it's only it's a miracle that no one was hurt or killed so that's pretty scary so it's up to us to look for the things that make information

and make news credible so one way we can know and we can check things is that a real a real credible news source is going to have a set of ethical principles and guidelines that they adhere to this is an example from The Economist and they for example say honest fair and fearless and news gathering reporting and interpreting information they want to maintain editorial independence reporters use objective data and research to support their work and on the other side they have policies around conflicts of interest one thing new employees that previously worked in partisan positions

are forbidden from covering politics so credible news sources are going to have those kinds of checks and balances have policies governing editorial and how they gather and share information so there's a lot of things that you can do to be a responsible consumer of news media you can understand the role that confirmation bias stereotyping and other cognitive biases play in how we interpret events news and information we all have a framework that how we view the world and that's just normal we're all human families our education where we grew up all these things influence how

we look at news but if you recognize that bias that can help you in understanding what's really true and not so if you see a headline for example that really elicits a strong response to you or for you that might be because you have an existing bias so go look it up research it a little bit and see where else that newsroom was reported so you understand and consider your role as a citizen in a democracy and your responsibility as a civic participant and a citizen watchdog that is so important the things that we share

and we talk about with our friends and our neighbors and the people that trust us in turn influence them these things matter in making decisions in our lives so be responsible and consider yourself as a participant in democracy understand the standards of quality journalism that are designed to minimize the influence of individual and group biases like the slide the previous slide I just showed you that's any any credible news organization is going to have those kinds of things and develop strategies for verifying news and information and I would I would add as well there's there's

a difference between an opinion when 10 people are talking on a cable news channel about a Pete 1 piece of news for 20 minutes that's not news that's their opinion about that piece of news so I like to stick to the facts and make my decisions accordingly and also deep fake videos you can't always believe what you see and you can do is believe what you hear deep fake videos have become rampant people will be talking on a video and you're certain it's the words are coming out of this individuals mouth and it's not necessarily

true there's some very sophisticated techniques for manipulating video so here's another example of a tool that you can use in discerning what's how to evaluate your news this is news media bias ratings and there's a whole bunch of these charts online they're pretty easy to find media grid I think you can search and this one in particular has you know the center these sources USA Today Wall Street Journal NPR Christian Science Monitor AP there's some great sources in the middle and that's really where I tried to stick I tried to stick to the middle lane

I don't want to live in an echo chamber I don't want to have my beliefs continually reinforced I like to just have this the facts and they make my decisions accordingly so and then it shows you know far right far left different sources so there's several of those that I find really helpful then there's another thing you can also check there's fact-checking sources where you can check a news an article that you or a story that you saw and you want to check into it there's several sources and this is a source it actually checks

the fact checker if you will so these are they've claimed are pretty credible PolitiFact Snopes Snopes is a good ol iView Snopes a lot truth or fiction these are great sources for checking the facts of a story so you you're armed with that these are more biased sources so there's fact checker from the Washington Post fact myth check your - zebra fact so not all fact checkers are created equally apparently and I would would contend that this is so important to our democracy and to the divides that are in our country is to have the

right information and be able to share and discuss things intelligently and not worry about things that don't even matter that aren't even true there's plenty of things that divide us and we can't continue to let that happen that's our responsibility as Franklin Roosevelt said democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely the real safeguard of democracy therefore is education information is power let's take back our power [Applause] [Music]