This is an archived copy of a post written by Conflict Of Justice (conflictofjustice.com). Used with permission: Conflict Of Justice may not agree with any alterations made.
In the age of rising social media and failing mainstream media, news streams report the same stories but with very different angles. Fake news is everywhere and nobody knows what to do about it, right? Well, here is an easy guide. If you want to know what is going on in the world, it takes a lot more than turning to a fact-checker. Even the most trustworthy media spin the truth. Here is how to get the true story.
Research Sources
The media frequently twists quotes and statistics to fit their fake narrative, or they omit important pieces of the puzzle. This works because 99% of people are too lazy to double-check anything. It takes time to track down the original sources and analyze them. But I find that when I do, the truth is different than how the media spins it.
Find The Original Source – When you see a reference to a study in a news article, find the study and read it. About 90% of journalists copy what some other media has printed or relate something third hand, and important context gets lost even if the journalist has no malicious intention. So just read every original source all the way through… okay, maybe that’s not so easy after all.
Be Skeptical Of Quotations – The media often paraphrases someone’s quote and spins it differently than what the person actually said. So quotes from “faithful church members” can’t always be trusted. Other times, the media gives only a small snippet of a quote out of context. This is why my advice to members of the church is never to talk to journalists.
Look For Bad Sources – A source is not credible just because they call it a “scientific study.” A group is not necessarily affiliated with the church or involves church members just because a newspaper calls it a “Mormon group.” Journalists cherry-pick sources that agree with their narrative and dress up the language to make them sound credible. Often, newspapers sprinkle their articles with sources that only back up the narrative they are pushing. This is pretty much the cardinal rule of journalism now: quote only those who push your narrative. (We at Conflict Of Justice believe in getting both sides of the story.) So, you need to look at each person quoted, each organization referenced, and find out which way they are skewed. Then look at who is arguing for the other side and see what they have to say.
Often, articles in mainstream newspapers rely on anonymous sources. Is an anonymous source more credible if it appears in the New York Times? Ask yourself, why does the source need to remain anonymous?
Watch Out For Charged Language
Even the most well-intentioned journalist pushes a narrative of opinion. It is impossible for someone to avoid inserting bias with their descriptions. It’s unavoidable. (I may even do it once in a while.) For many journalists, it is all about pushing narrative. Most people recognize that words are picked to push a certain bias, but people don’t understand just how slanted it can make the reporting. Just one word can completely change the article’s meaning. To avoid a fake narrative, I dispose of those charged words immediately in my mind as I read the article and exchange them with a more fair phraseology. Ask yourself, if the person being accused of a crime were a beloved family member of yours, would you agree with the charged language being written about them in the article?
Universal Narrative – Ever notice how every media outlet uses the same exact phrasing, the same words, no matter which newspaper you read? “Migrant Caravan.” Who chose those words? Why? Why is Mark Hofmann labeled by newspapers “the Mormon bomber” when he was actually an Antimormon? Charged language is more powerful if it is universal across thousands of media outlets and whittled down to a short slogan. So it is short and universal. This plants the media narrative firmly in the public’s minds so that it becomes American culture. The media surrounds the slogan with whatever scraps of facts or evidence they can gather. It is also an SEO game. If enough websites place a negative descriptor next to the word “Mormon,” Google results will skew towards those results. That’s why Antimormon websites dominate Google searches.
Pay attention to the photos and illustrations that accompany articles. How does the content and its framing slant the reporting? Why does it seem to always be the same spooky dark photoshopped image of the Salt Lake Temple in every article about the church? Why this intentional bias?
Blaming The Church
Many of the problems for which the church gets attacked by the media are actually problems that opponents of the church themselves created. There is a tendency for journalists to project their own shortcomings and the failures of their ideologies onto their enemies. We become their whipping boy, and the public fails to notice the seedy reality of their worldly ideologies because it is projected onto us. I was shocked to see the Salt Lake Tribune receive a Pulitzer Prize for their reporting on sexual assaults at BYU when in reality BYU’s rape rate is a tiny fraction of “progressive” universities like University of California Berkeley. This is certainly an issue that all communities need to take seriously and tackle, but is it right to frame it like it is a bigger problem in Utah than among “progressive” communities?
Diversions – There are multiple tactics the media uses to divert attention, like magicians using sleight of hand in a card trick. So we don’t see what they don’t want us to see. A glaring example was the news networks giving live coverage of troops bombing Iraq while Bill Clinton was being impeached. That was pretty obvious. But whenever you see a goofy article about something nobody cares about, ask yourself what important news they were trying to keep off the newspaper’s front page? Media corporations are very careful to focus the frame of issues and avoid certain topics–such as the consequences of breaking the law of chastity, the disintegration of the family, attacks on freedom of religion, attacks on freedom of speech, the successes of gospel living, etc. Articles are designed to force readers into a frame of discussion that focuses on issues they want to discuss, in a way they want it discussed, and excludes many issues that are important to members of the church.
Frame Of Discussion
Extreme Positions – Clickbait headlines get the clicks. Yet most sane people are suspicious of extreme positions. This is the dilemma of all bloggers. If you produce thousands of headlines across thousands of platforms with the same extreme position, people are more likely to accept it. The world is going crazy, but try to search your superego for the scant remains of common sense that your grandmother instilled in you, even if all your friends on Facebook seem to think an extreme article’s position is neutral. Regardless whether the article’s position is good or not, the fact that they take an extreme position means they are trying to wack you over the head with it rather than trusting you to make the right choice for yourself. In our article about the Nauvoo Expositor, for example, we had to go through about ten drafts and remove incendiary language about people who defend that newspaper, in order to keep a civil and neutral tone. The reader can make up their own mind about skeptics who defend it, regardless how we feel about it.
Strawman “Moderates” – Friends are always asking me for debating tips. All the time. One thing I tell them is to be most wary of “moderates” who position themselves as the “reasonable voice in the middle.” So-called moderate bloggers often cloak themselves in a facade to virtue-signal to the other side, and this is something I have noticed people on all sides of issues do, and church members are no exception. Bloggers may take a pro-church position or defend the church for a while, and then suddenly whirl to the other side and stab it in the back. Or a blogger may take an Antimormon position and then whirl around and be pro-church to endear themselves to the church audience. The challenge is to see their agenda for what it is before the betrayal.
Their goal is always to shift public opinion of the “moderate” position to whatever position they are advocating for. Clues can be seen early on, such as sympathy for the opposing narrative or adoption of their language. You may see them support a church policy yet assert the righteousness of “equality.” Or it may be the other way around, they may take some things to an unreasonable extreme to make you look bad.
Of course, the danger with this is if we become intolerant of any position that we think doesn’t line up 100% with the church. People are certainly allowed to have their independent opinions, and we should encourage that. But the issue here is when bloggers create a false impression of what is pro-church, a reasonable position, or moderate. Lately, they call it “middle of the road Mormonism.” A position or ideology that is anti-church should not be labeled pro-church and we should not be afraid to stand by what we believe.
Look for anything that sounds fishy. If you read something and think “that doesn’t sound right,” be very skeptical. Also, if you read something and it sounds too good to be true, be skeptical then as well. For example, if someone were to uncover ancient metal plates in South America with Hebrew writing, wait for experts to verify it before you make a big deal of it.
Altering Your Ideology – The frame of discussion is vitally important in forming the base ideology, and this I believe is why mainstream media pushes bias and fake news. It’s why mainstream media exists, really. To form an ideology. Ever see a church member rant on Twitter about some church issue and think, “They sound like a CNN reporter”? The conditioning seeps through so that the media’s ideology forms the base and the gospel becomes just a shell over the top. This is something that happens both on the liberal and the conservative end, to be clear. Instead of providing facts and information that we can use to synthesize our own opinions and belief systems, the media becomes the driving force behind our belief systems, like a preacher in a church or tome of scripture. Look for hints of ideology in the media’s delivery and meet it with utter contempt. If some stranger on the street started screaming that you are evil for wanting to have a family, how would you react? Why is it okay when the media does it?
Ponder – Discernment in many ways comes through intuition. Often, you have to get past your initial emotional reaction and actually think through things. Many people told me that when they first heard about the church policy of baptizing children of homosexual couples. People were filled with rage because they heard it first from hostile Antimormon newspapers. News articles are carefully crafted to elicit emotional reactions, to further push the audience into the journalist’s narrow frame of discussion. People are less likely to open up to logic after this powerful emotional rush. But people told me once they got past the emotional reaction and when they thought it through, they discovered that it was a perfectly reasonable policy. It just takes some time to open up to the entire frame of discussion and think about it logically and independently.
Calm Down – The media hypes up urgency, and we get so stressed about this and that. Everything is so urgent. But really the world has always had trouble. We will always have something to worry about, because it is human nature to worry, and if we don’t have something to worry about we will invent problems to worry about. Extremism is bred from unhealthy worry over world events that are not really that important and over which we have little power. Every time a Republican becomes president it’s the end of the world for Democrats and every time a Democrat becomes president, likewise for Republicans. There are marches through the streets of angry people with no clue what they are actually marching for, much like how the Lamanites were whipped up to anger so many times in the Book of Mormon. Yet a small percentage of the overall population bothers to vote. I believe part of being a Saint is having the motivation to take meaningful action without being motivated by hyped up nonsense. We take action intelligently and methodically because our minds aren’t clouded by emotion or controlled by the media.
Ultimately, that’s what it comes down to: how the media affects our beliefs, our actions, and our lifestyle. Is it just entertainment (like so much of the news media is for me)? Is it something to get emotional about, like a soap opera? Does it really make you smarter and knowledgeable? What do you actually get out of the media you consume and how does it make you a better man or woman? How does it help your family?