Facebook, lies and the future of journalism

USA TODAY journalist Nathan Bomey, who wrote the critically acclaimed "Detroit Resurrected: To Bankruptcy and Back" when he was a reporter for the Detroit Free Press, tackles a much broader subject in his new book "After the Fact: The Erosion of Truth and the Inevitable Rise of Donald Trump". which is excerpted in today's Free Press.

Last week, I talked to Bomey about the hazards journalists and their audience confront in the "post-truth" era. Some excerpts from our conversation: 

You work for USA Today, and you’ve written a book that defends the integrity and trustworthiness of mainstream media. I work for the Detroit Free Press, and I think you make a convincing case. But why should anyone give your argument more credence than Donald Trump’s assertion that we’re a couple of self-serving hacks bent on sabotaging his presidency?

A healthy news industry is absolutely essential to a healthy democracy. Journalism is a public service, no matter what anyone tells you.

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Americans are busy. They don’t have time to spend all day sorting fact from fiction when it comes to the palace intrigue at the White House, or the city of Detroit, or my hometown of Saline. They need us as professional journalists to help circulate facts, hold public officials accountable and squelch misinformation.

 I don’t know a single reporter who isn’t committed to the truth. Do we make mistakes? Yes. But when information isn’t flowing freely, it’s easier for people in power to skew the facts and capitalize on people’s vulnerabilities. 

When I was learning to be a journalist, I was taught that you discovered the truth by consulting as many people and documents as you could and figuring out where the versions of reality each of them offered converged. You were ready to write your story when you had synthesized everything in a coherent narrative that was supported by credible evidence.

Is that still the essence of the job? Or has the explosion of information available to anyone with internet access rendered the gate-keeping role that reporters and editors used to play obsolete?

Unfortunately, for-profit local journalism is facing an existential crisis. The business model of news is perilously threatened – and with fewer reporters, there’s less news. And in some instances, the news is more hyperbolic and less nuanced.

So Americans are increasingly on their own in the chaotic digital universe, where social media delivers news based on what’s most sensational, controversial or sexy. 

You argue that the decision that major social media platforms like Facebook made to trust algorithmic formulas to replace human judgments about which news stories were true or which news media were reliable was the original sin that allowed fake news to proliferate and overwhelm the internet. But are there really enough editors to perform that gate-keeping function in a world where anyone with an iPhone is a publisher with access to millions of readers?

Regrettably, no. 

I think most of us fail to grasp the sheer scale of social media. Facebook has more than 2 billion monthly users. 

Facebook’s algorithm developers are truly the new gatekeepers. They are deciding what Americans see and what they don’t see.

Thus, the Facebook News Feed exerts astounding influence over how people perceive the world. There’s never been a tool like it in the history of the world.

What does the News Feed favor? Well, it typically promotes photos, videos, news articles and posts that are perceived as engaging – which unfortunately tends to be content that makes us emotional in some way. 

And often that emotion is anger or fear, which plays into the hands of politicians who are promoting a specific agenda.

One of the things your book addresses is the allegation that Facebook deliberately suppressed conservative viewpoints in its users’ news feeds. You argue that allegation was, as a certain commander-in-chief might say, fake news. How did you reach that conclusion?

Facebook conducted an exhaustive internal investigation that concluded none of its trending news topic curators had snuffed out conservative content.

But I didn’t just take their word for it. I interviewed multiple former Facebook executives and news curators about this. I came to the same conclusion.

In reality, Facebook’s news curators had a pretty mundane process for validating information before popping headlines into the trending topic list for the world to see. It was a lot like traditional journalism, in fact. They verified the stories were real.

Then, in August 2016, Facebook fired its human curators, hoping to use artificial intelligence to sort fact from fiction. It was a big mistake. Fake news stories almost immediately started showing up in the trending topics list.

It was just a microcosm of this transfer of trust from journalists to social media algorithms that’s swept through society.

You say that the internet has made it easier to avoid information that makes us feel uncomfortable. You’re not talking about unpleasant news, like mass shootings or famines, but about information that challenges our values and convictions. I think the world would be better off if we all challenged ourselves more often. But isn’t that a decision each of us has to make for ourselves? Isn’t any publication or institution that makes people feel uncomfortable doomed in a world where nothing is easier than changing the channel?

I couldn’t agree more that it’s critical for all of us to seek out alternative perspectives. I think that goes for both sides of the aisle, too. How can we ever learn to respect each other and work together if we won’t try to see the world through each other’s eyes? 

I think this is where K-12 schools, colleges and universities can play a big role. We need educators to teach students to consider a wide range of viewpoints, apply critical thinking skills and assess the facts irrespective of political ideology. 

That’s a tall order. But we desperately need it. Because all of us are predisposed to confirmation bias. 

And unfortunately, Google, YouTube and other online tools make it easy for us to reinforce our preexisting beliefs rather than seek out the unvarnished truth.

Once upon a time, honesty and authenticity went hand in hand;. You couldn’t be a habitual liar and also be considered a stand-up guy. But a lot of people seem to forgive Donald Trump for saying things that aren’t true on the grounds that he at least says plainly what he thinks, and that he articulates their anger in a way no president before him dared to. When did emotional authenticity become more important than factual accuracy? Has it always been the coin of the political realm? Or has there been a fundamental change in what voters value most in their leaders?

The world is swirling with misinformation and disinformation – and it’s easier than ever to access and perpetuate. Russia understood this and took advantage by meddling in our election.

I think many people are fed up. They crave authenticity. The problem is that social media allows us to more easily imitate authenticity. 

I can spend all day polishing my persona on Instagram, for example, but it may not even remotely reflect reality. We’re all our own personal publicists now. So it’s getting harder to figure out what’s real and what’s fake in our friends and family. 

Social media largely ignores the hardships of life. Very few people talk online about the tough things they experience in real life. And that’s why research shows Facebook users are more susceptible to depression the longer they use it.

When we’re all lying to each other about who we are as humans, why should we be surprised that a politician can get away with lying to the world about who they are?