How Real Is Fake News? | Sharyl Attkisson | TEDxUniversityofNevada — Transcript

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1. 0:15As an investigative journalist, I found
2. 0:17myself with a few questions about the
3. 0:18emergence of fake news as a phrase and
4. 0:22as a fad.
5. 0:23Number one, what is fake news and what
6. 0:25is not?
7. 0:26Number two, when did fake news begin?
8. 0:29And number three, most interesting of
9. 0:31all, I've investigated the shadowy
10. 0:34multi-billion dollar industry that seeks
11. 0:36to manipulate all of us through news,
12. 0:38social media, and online.
13. 0:40So, I wondered, who's behind the massive
14. 0:43effort to direct our attention onto fake
15. 0:45news? Is fake news real?
16. 0:50First, the definition of fake news
17. 0:51depends on where you sit. It's not as if
18. 0:53there's an extreme dictionary authority
19. 0:55that gets to decide for everybody,
20. 0:57though some are trying, more on that in
21. 0:59a moment. But, when did fake news under
22. 1:01anybody's definition begin?
23. 1:04Well, fake news has always been embedded
24. 1:05in our culture, it just wasn't called
25. 1:07that. The supermarket rags gave
26. 1:09popularized a blatantly fake news with
27. 1:12front-page images of aliens impregnating
28. 1:14unsuspecting, usually large-breasted
29. 1:16Earthling women.
30. 1:18Most people probably believed little to
31. 1:20nothing of what they read in these
32. 1:21publications. A few people might have
33. 1:23believed everything.
34. 1:25But, there are countless examples of
35. 1:27fake news surfacing in mainstream news.
36. 1:30Example,
37. 1:32in 1996, the news media frenzy wrongly
38. 1:35blamed a security guard named Richard
39. 1:37Jewell for the Atlanta Olympic bombing.
40. 1:40We later learned that poor Jewell had
41. 1:41actually been a hero, moving people away
42. 1:44from a suspicious backpack before it
43. 1:45exploded.
44. 1:48On 9/11, a network TV news reporter
45. 1:50falsely reported that a terrorist plane
46. 1:52had crashed into presidential retreat
47. 1:54Camp David.
48. 1:56Never happened.
49. 1:58The internet revolutionized fake news.
50. 1:59Whether we're talking about a rumor or
51. 2:02intentional disinformation or biased,
52. 2:04sloppy, erroneous reporting, what what
53. 2:07had circulated amongst the relative few
54. 2:09could now develop a global following
55. 2:11overnight.
56. 2:13Example,
57. 2:14in 2012, 26 people were murdered at
58. 2:17Sandy Hook Elementary.
59. 2:19Blogs and social media immediately began
60. 2:21circulating rumors and images insisting
61. 2:24the whole thing was a hoax drummed up by
62. 2:26the government and staged by actors.
63. 2:29In 2014, Rolling Stone magazine reported
64. 2:32on a sensational case of a fraternity
65. 2:35gang rape that turned out to be so
66. 2:37unsubstantiated that Rolling Stone
67. 2:39retracted the article, and the reporter
68. 2:41was found guilty of malice in a
69. 2:43defamation lawsuit.
70. 2:45And whatever you think of the 2014
71. 2:47police shooting of Michael Brown, even
72. 2:50the Obama Justice Department eventually
73. 2:51ruled that the entire hands up, don't
74. 2:53shoot scenario, which blanketed the news
75. 2:56day in and day out, was probably
76. 2:59fabricated, and that the police officer
77. 3:01acted in legitimate self-defense.
78. 3:04But, it wasn't until 2016 that the
79. 3:06actual phrase fake news was introduced
80. 3:09to the American public on a national
81. 3:11scale.
82. 3:13Liberals were first to heavily promote
83. 3:14use of the phrase, referring to
84. 3:16conservative disinformation and
85. 3:18right-wing websites, and there's
86. 3:20certainly plenty of that.
87. 3:23Example,
88. 3:24as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton
89. 3:26battled it out, a website called The
90. 3:28Conservative Daily Post published a huge
91. 3:30amount of pro-Trump, anti-Clinton
92. 3:32propaganda under the name and likeness
93. 3:35of a former beauty queen named Laura
94. 3:36Hunter.
95. 3:38The real Laura Hunter says she didn't
96. 3:40write any of those articles.
97. 3:42She claims impostors turned her into a
98. 3:44spokesman for a radical right-wing
99. 3:46website that pedals fake news. She sued
100. 3:49them.
101. 3:50Meantime, Trump and conservatives
102. 3:52counterpunched with their own notion of
103. 3:54fake news, meaning biased, sloppy,
104. 3:56erroneous reporting as committed by the
105. 3:59mainstream media and the left.
106. 4:01Plenty of that, too.
107. 4:03Example,
108. 4:05on President Trump's first day in
109. 4:06office, a Time magazine reporter falsely
110. 4:09reported that Trump had removed a bust
111. 4:11statue of Martin Luther King from the
112. 4:13Oval Office.
113. 4:15The White House quickly tweeted out a
114. 4:16photo showing the statue was still very
115. 4:18much there. The reporter, perhaps
116. 4:20blinded by his own bias, hadn't followed
117. 4:22the most basic tenets of beginning
118. 4:24journalism, check your facts.
119. 4:27So, if fake news by other names has
120. 4:29always been around, why does it suddenly
121. 4:32become the stuff of daily headlines
122. 4:33during the 2016 campaign?
123. 4:37I did a little digging, and I traced the
124. 4:38effort to a nonprofit called First
125. 4:41Draft, which appears to be about the
126. 4:43first to use the phrase fake news in its
127. 4:45modern context.
128. 4:47On September 13th, 2016,
129. 4:50First Draft announced a partnership to
130. 4:51tackle malicious hoaxes and fake news
131. 4:54reports.
132. 4:56The goal was supposedly to separate
133. 4:57wheat from chaff, to prevent unproven
134. 5:00conspiracy talk from prominently in
135. 5:02internet searches.
136. 5:03To relegate today's version of the alien
137. 5:05baby story to a special internet
138. 5:07oblivion.
139. 5:09Exactly 1 month later, President Obama
140. 5:12chimed in.
141. 5:13He insisted in a speech that he too
142. 5:15thought somebody needed to step in and
143. 5:18curate information in this wild, wild
144. 5:20west media environment.
145. 5:22Nobody in the public had been clamoring
146. 5:24for any such thing. Yet, suddenly, the
147. 5:27topic of fake news dominates headlines
148. 5:29on a daily basis. It's as if the media
149. 5:31had been given its marching orders. Fake
150. 5:33news, they insisted, was an imminent
151. 5:35threat to American democracy.
152. 5:38But, as somebody who studied the
153. 5:40industry that seeks to manipulate all of
154. 5:41us on behalf of paid interests, I know
155. 5:44that few themes arise in our environment
156. 5:46organically.
157. 5:48A noted propagandist told me, "It's like
158. 5:51a movie," he said, and it gave me chills
159. 5:53at the time.
160. 5:55Nearly every scene or image that crosses
161. 5:57our path in daily life, he said, was put
162. 6:00there for a reason, often by someone who
163. 6:02paid a lot of money to place it there.
164. 6:05What if the whole anti-fake news
165. 6:07campaign was an effort on somebody's
166. 6:09part to keep us from seeing or believing
167. 6:12certain websites and stories by
168. 6:14controversializing them or labeling them
169. 6:16as fake news?
170. 6:18But, who would want to do such a thing?
171. 6:21When connecting the dots, I find it
172. 6:23often helps to follow the money. I
173. 6:24wanted to know who was funding the
174. 6:26nonprofit First Draft and its anti-fake
175. 6:29news effort.
176. 6:30I found the answer.
177. 6:32It was Google.
178. 6:34Google's parent company, Alphabet, was
179. 6:36run by a man named Eric Schmidt. Eric
180. 6:38Schmidt, as it happens, had devoted
181. 6:40himself to Hillary Clinton's election
182. 6:42campaign, offered himself up as a
183. 6:44campaign adviser, and became a top
184. 6:46multi-million dollar donor to it.
185. 6:49His company funded First Draft around
186. 6:50the start of the election cycle.
187. 6:53Not surprisingly, Hillary was soon to
188. 6:55jump aboard the anti-fake news train,
189. 6:57and her surrogate, David Brock of Media
190. 6:59Matters, privately told donors he was
191. 7:02the one who convinced Facebook to join
192. 7:03the effort.
193. 7:05I'm not the only one who thinks the
194. 7:06whole thing smacked of the roll out of a
195. 7:08propaganda campaign.
196. 7:10Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept wrote,
197. 7:12"The most important fact you need to
198. 7:14realize is that those who most loudly
199. 7:16denounce fake news are typically the
200. 7:18ones most aggressively disseminating
201. 7:20it."
202. 7:22But, something happened that nobody
203. 7:24expected.
204. 7:25The anti-fake news campaign backfired.
205. 7:29Each time advocates cried fake news,
206. 7:31Donald Trump called them fake news until
207. 7:33he co-opted the term so completely that
208. 7:36even those who were originally promoting
209. 7:37it started running from it, including
210. 7:39the Washington Post,
211. 7:40which in January of 2017 wrote, "It's
212. 7:43time to retire the tainted term fake
213. 7:45news."
214. 7:47In fact, it's now commonly misreported
215. 7:49that it was Donald Trump who thought up
216. 7:50the phrase.
217. 7:52Actually, it was just a hostile
218. 7:53takeover.
219. 7:55Suffice it to say that each side now
220. 7:57defines fake news in terms that call the
221. 7:59other guy into question.
222. 8:01So, what's the lesson in all of this?
223. 8:04I'm not here to litigate who's right,
224. 8:05but I can tell you there are two ways to
225. 8:07tell that powerful interests might be
226. 8:09trying to manipulate your opinion.
227. 8:11Number one, when the media seems to be
228. 8:13trying to shape or censor facts and
229. 8:15opinions rather than report them.
230. 8:18Number two, when so many in the media
231. 8:21are reporting the same stories,
232. 8:23promulgating the same narratives,
233. 8:24relying on the same sources, even using
234. 8:27the same phrases. I mean, think of it,
235. 8:29there are literally thousands of
236. 8:31legitimate news stories that could be
237. 8:32reported in a given day and an infinite
238. 8:34number of ways to report them.
239. 8:36When everybody's on the same page,
240. 8:39it might be the result of an organized
241. 8:40campaign.
242. 8:43I'll leave you with a final thought and
243. 8:44a warning. It's about a new catchphrase
244. 8:46being bandied about, media literacy, as
245. 8:49in we'll tell you who to trust and who
246. 8:51not to trust.
247. 8:53Media literacy advocates are busy trying
248. 8:55to get state laws passed to require that
249. 8:57their version of media literacy be
250. 8:59taught in public schools.
251. 9:01They're developing websites as resources
252. 9:03for journalists and the public. They're
253. 9:05partnering with universities.
254. 9:07I think media literacy is a new name
255. 9:09promoted by some of the same people who
256. 9:11want to tell you what to believe.
257. 9:14People with their own agendas using
258. 9:15terms designed to fool you into thinking
259. 9:17they're neutral authorities.
260. 9:19What you need to remember is that when
261. 9:21interests are working this hard to shape
262. 9:22your opinion,
263. 9:24their true goal might just be to add
264. 9:26another layer between you and the truth.