Welcome back to my blog! As I mentioned in my first post, I am a new blogger, so don’t bash me too hard. Today’s topic is… fake news!! Over the term of our current president, the term “fake news” has become a trending topic. Before everyone clicks off my page, no this is not about to turn into a political rant. The point is fake news has been a growing issue, especially with social media, President Trump just gave way for creative memes and gifs to be created around the issue.
Let’s clear the air of all the misconceptions of the term. Fake news is created deliberately to ruin someone’s reputation or mislead the public. The key word is D E L I B E R A T E L Y. When someone creates fake news, they are trying to be evil.
Why are we still falling for these fake news broadcasts? It’s because of the inconsequential truth. Simply put, perception is reality. In high school, rumors grow like weeds. It doesn’t matter if the rumor is true or not. If it is a good story, people take the information and run like Forrest Gump.
An example of fake news, on the extreme level, is the “Pizzagate” situation. Conspiracy theories about the 2016 election spread, accusing Hillary Clinton and her staff of keeping child abuse victims in a pizza shop. This led a man to show up to the pizza shop with an assault rifle to investigate. Now I’m not exactly an expert just yet, but I would’ve killed this story when it started to go viral by having an open house at the pizza shop. People can have a slice of pizza and take a tour of the entire facility, so they can see for themselves there were no children being kept there. We would stream it live on social media and invite the local media out to cover the event.
There are many people and companies who have fallen victim to viral hoaxes. As some of us found out the hard way in high school, sometimes the truth isn’t always accepted. Especially, if the hoax was a better story than the truth. When this happens the best thing to do is take a page of the legendary, Olivia Pope’s handbook and rewrite your narrative.
It is important to remember what goal you want in the end. After a lie has gone viral, not everyone is going to accept the truth. When you have an audience that “can’t handle the truth”, you should tailor your messages to their beliefs and motivations. While you can’t do anything about the damage that has been done, but you can always do everything you can to reshape the future.
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