Sheila Kennedy: Propaganda flourishes without civic literacy

I am still mulling the implications of a friend’s recent visit to a pro-Trump website. He shared a screenshot showing the names and pictures of four people identified as Democratic senators who were switching to the GOP in protest of the president’s impeachment.

None of them were real senators.

Whoever created that website clearly operated on the assumption that visitors would be partisans so civically ignorant that the phony names and stock photos wouldn’t trigger fact-checking. It was probably a well-founded assumption. We occupy a fragmented media environment that increasingly caters to confirmation bias. (If you really believe aliens landed in Roswell, you can probably find at least five internet sites with pictures of the aliens’ bodies.) Americans no longer listen to the same three network news shows or read the same daily newspapers; the ensuing intense competition for eyes, ears and clicks has spawned a treacherous information terrain.

When I first practiced law, an older lawyer in my firm told me something I’ll never forget: There is only one legal question, and that’s, “What should we do?” That maxim applies more broadly; it absolutely applies to what has come to be called “news literacy.”

Every so often, a naive student asks why the government can’t pass a law requiring media outlets to tell the truth. As I try to explain, truth and fact are often honestly contested—and then there’s the First Amendment.

But we aren’t powerless just because government is prohibited from censoring us. There’s no reason the private sector cannot develop tools to help citizens determine whom they can reasonably rely on—and whom they can’t. Current criticism of Facebook for allowing dishonest political ads is based upon its right to reject them.

What if a nonpartisan, respected not-for-profit—say the Society for Professional Journalists—developed an analogue to the “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval,” attesting to the legitimacy of a media source? The award of that seal wouldn’t indicate the truth of any particular article, but it would confirm that the organization was one that adhered to the procedures required of ethical, reputable journals.

It would take substantial funding, of course, to develop and maintain the capacity to monitor the practices and procedures of media outlets claiming to be “news.” And that “seal of approval” wouldn’t mean that any given report wasn’t flawed in some way—genuine reporters are human and make mistakes. But it would help citizens who actually care about accuracy and evidence-based reporting to determine the bona fides of online sources they encounter.

Ultimately, of course, our ability to inhabit a shared reality will depend upon individuals. In the brave new information world we all must navigate, each of us is our own “gatekeeper.” The days when editors and reporters decided what constituted verifiable news and what didn’t are long gone. And that brings me back to the screenshot shared by my friend.

It’s no wonder that propaganda flourishes in a country where only 26% of adults can name the three branches of government, fewer than half of 12th-graders are able to define federalism, and only 35% of teenagers can correctly identify “We the People” as the first three words of the Constitution.

When politicians make claims that are blatantly inconsistent with America’s history and form of government, civic ignorance virtually guarantees the uncritical acceptance of those claims by partisans who want to believe them.

Adequate civic knowledge can’t guarantee recognition of all disinformation—but it’s an essential first step.•

__________

Kennedy is a professor of law and public policy at the Paul H. O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at IUPUI.