{"id":4371,"date":"2022-04-11T15:13:59","date_gmt":"2022-04-11T19:13:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/?p=4371"},"modified":"2022-04-28T13:04:57","modified_gmt":"2022-04-28T17:04:57","slug":"social-media-promotes-misinformation-says-washpo-reporter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/2022\/04\/social-media-promotes-misinformation-says-washpo-reporter\/","title":{"rendered":"Social Media Promotes Misinformation, Says WashPo Reporter"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a professional journalist, Salvador Rizzo stresses how important it is to remain neutral and objective. \u201cYou can show some emotion, but can\u2019t do more than a little,\u201d he said. But even acclaimed reporters like him often find themselves in situations when they cannot stay silent.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

During the Trump administration, when COVID-19 vaccine misinformation spread like wildfire, a family member of Rizzo\u2019s posted false information through a private What\u2019s App. As a professional fact checker, he couldn\u2019t keep quiet. On impulse, he corrected a rumor she had posted in the group chat. Their relationship hasn\u2019t been the same since.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a little bit intimidating [for her] and I shouldn\u2019t have done that because it was a bad thing for the family,\u201d he said about correcting his cousin\u2019s wife. \u201cThere are consequences if you confront someone for something that they believe is true. They will feel offended.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Salvador Rizzo at Hunter College talk<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rizzo, a Washington Post national reporter and fact-checker, spoke at Hunter College last week about the importance of fact-checking and informing oneself as being a good news consumer.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to <\/span>Pew Research Center<\/span><\/a>, 18-29 years olds with at least some college education are the highest Internet users in the U.S., and more likely to use social media. However, \u201cthey rarely read laterally to evaluate the quality of the information they encounter online,\u201d the report said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rizzo\u2019s main advice is remaining open-minded and calm around people that believe in unverified information, while also not letting emotion overpower logic. But how can a student gain the skills of a fact-checker?<\/span><\/p>\n

Rizzo\u2019s resilience towards misinformation reached its breaking point during Trump\u2019s administration, which he described as \u201cfour years of falsehood.\u201d A student at the talk was curious to find out how he stayed professional around so much misleading information. With so many \u201cbad actors trying to manipulate people\u201d online, accurate facts are hard to come by, he said, and students need to be capable of differentiating between true and false.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSocial media is a powerful tool to spread misinformation,\u201d Rizzo said. <\/span>In a given week, \u201c89% of students surveyed got their news from social media,\u201d found a Northeastern University <\/span>study<\/span><\/a>. The amount of students exposed to inaccurate information is exponential, and they need to be able to fact-check, he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rizzo\u2019s most important tip is to enroll in a news literacy course. Right after the Q&A portion of the talk, a student cheered, \u201cTake the news literacy class!\u201d Another student at the talk found that her \u201cbig takeaway was how much work goes into all of this\u201d fact-checking.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is vital to take this class as \u201cnews literacy is a life skill,\u201d stressed Sissel McCarthy, head of the journalism department and one of the professors teaching the Media 211 news literacy course.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBecause there\u2019s so much misinformation and conspiracy theories out there, right now people are not equipped to be able to discern what is factual and what is false,\u201d she elaborated. \u201cYou really need to be taught critical thinking skills and that\u2019s why this course is so important.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Washington Post reporter opens up about how Trump\u2019s \u201cfour years of falsehood\u201d changed his career as a fact-checker.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":4373,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[486,485,279,484],"class_list":["post-4371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-cunystudents","tag-fact-checking","tag-huntercollege-hunterstudents","tag-misinformation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/110"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4371"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4376,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4371\/revisions\/4376"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}