SO MARIA Ressa of Rappler fame sent out a newsletter titled “Governments lie and what we should do about it” about a week ago, and in it, she talked about how she participated in roundtable talks in India, and how some governments and political parties are actively organizing paid shills to promote their interests and undermine the truth.
Speaking about her thoughts on the matter, Ressa writes: “In the three sessions I did on Aug. 3, it became clear that India was dealing with much the same thing we are in the Philippines – a polluted and weaponized social media landscape stifling critical voices, and narrowing the public space.”
Now, I have a lot of respect for Ressa, but I have to disagree with her assessments in the newsletter. The implication is that any pushback against the mainstream media and professional journalists in general is automatically trolling or fake news. I disagree. I think that Ressa and journalists like her are having a negative reaction to the democratization of journalism because of the internet.
Ressa’s thoughts about this topic are not unique to her either. Fake news and censorship have become hot button issues in many parts of the world, from the United States and China to Latin America, Europe and of course here. Journalists have never had to deal with large numbers of trolls or shills, or even just ordinary people telling them that they’re wrong (respectfully or otherwise). So what happened?
The internet happened. When the internet became a popular medium, it made journalism cheap. Now, anyone with an electronic device and an internet connection can speak his or her mind, either on social media, a forum, YouTube, a blog, or a comment section. So when my fellow journalists speak about trolling, my answer to that is, that’s just how the internet works.
Unlike traditional news outlets like TV, radio or newspapers, the internet cannot be controlled by editors and producers. It’s too decentralized. Also, dismissing opposing views and angry comments as trolls or shills (unless they’re calling for violence) is dismissing the other side as invalid, which in turn will only further polarize and anger them, leading to more trolling.
What many journalists fail to understand is that there is no such thing as purely objective or purely unbiased public discourse. The media have their own agenda and bias, just like everyone else, and yes, that includes me. There will always be someone somewhere who will disagree with my take on a particular topic, and their disagreement comes from their own “take” on the topic, just as Rappler’s opponents have their own takes and biases. However, such biases don’t make them trolls.
The reason why “fake news” and trolling the media have become such hot button issues these days is because the mainstream media no longer monopolize the public space. Social media platforms, like Twitter, Facebook and even less well-known sites, like 4chan and 8chan, have allowed ordinary people to share information with one another and draw their own conclusions.
And mainstream journalists – both here and abroad – don’t like those conclusions. It’s why many of them are so quick to dismiss them as “fake news.”
When they say “fake news” what they usually mean is news not made or produced by professional journalists./PN
