An 1894 newspaper illustration depicting various forms of fabricated news. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
If we can’t trust the quality of the information we use to make choices in a democracy, can democracy survive? Behind that question is a rising effort to combat “fake news,” sometimes with legal measures. According to the advocacy group Media Literacy Now, ten states considered media literacy legislation in 2018 alone.
The inevitable question is rising to the surface: who decides what news is fake and what isn’t? Project Censored, a California-based media watchdog group, is skeptical of the movement that has turned media literacy into a buzz phrase. Its director contends that “the whole fighting of ‘fake news’ has become a Trojan horse to propel other agendas.” Courtesy Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.