Sorting Fact from Fiction

Though many Canadians – especially youth – first hear about news on social media, research has found that news outlets’ videos are rarely seen, leaving a gap for misinformation (or intentional disinformation) to fill.[1] While people often overestimate how common misinformation in news actually is, this perception can reduce trust in reliable news sources, as well.[2]

There are three types of news stories that need a particularly skeptical eye:

1. Non-news content, such as ads and opinion pieces, that looks like news
2. Entirely false news stories, including satire and fake stories that purport to be true
3. Genuine news stories which are significantly compromised by the source’s bias

Research suggests that most people judge a news source based in part on whether it looks like news.[3] This can make it difficult to distinguish between genuine news and “native advertising” or “sponsored content” that mimics the form of news: one study found that 82 percent of students were unable to distinguish between a real news story and an ad with similar formatting on the same website.[4] Added to this is the increasingly blurry line between news and opinion and the difficulty of distinguishing between the two, especially in online contexts. While in print newspaper opinion pieces are generally kept separate from news, research has found that fewer than half of news organizations provide any sort of labels to online pieces to help readers tell when they’re reading news or opinion.[5]

The second type – entirely false stories spread by unreliable or fictitious news sources – can have a significant effect in three ways:

• first, when it reaches news consumers who don’t have the general knowledge to know the difference between the (real) Boston Globe and the (fake) Boston Tribune,[6] especially now that it’s relatively easy to create a professional-looking website;
• when it reaches people who are prone to engage in motivated reasoning – the mental habit of working backward from what you believe to your judgment of a source’s credibility, which is associated with having highly polarized beliefs on the topic;[7]
• and when false or highly distorted stories spread from unreliable sources to legitimate news. The blurred distinction between fact and opinion described above, along with the tailoring of news content to narrower audiences, can make news sources vulnerable to their own form of motivated reasoning in which they are more willing to give the benefit of the doubt to stories that align with their (and their readers’ or viewers’) political opinions or biases.[8]

This last point may have the biggest impact. While entirely false news items are the most obvious – almost everyone has a friend or relative who shared a story from The Onion or The Beaverton without realizing it was satire, or has seen made-up stories circulate during an election – it is most often when they spread to a legitimate but compromised source that they reach news consumers.

Another issue that can make it difficult to recognize how bias influences a source is that all sources have some bias or another, and that some biases are harder to perceive because they determine what isn’t included. As Margaret Gallagher put it, “it matters profoundly who and what is selected to appear in news coverage and how individuals and events are portrayed. Equally, it matters who is left out and what is not covered.”[9] While women now make up 41% of reporters in Canadian news media, for instance, they’re only 31% of subjects in news stories.[10] The same study found that worldwide, “women’s relative invisibility in traditional news media has crossed over into digital news delivery platforms: Only 21% of the people in Internet news stories and media news posts combined are women.”[11] Similarly, three-quarters (75.5%) of Canadian journalists identify as White, while only two-thirds (68.8%) of the overall population does.[12] Members of marginalized groups may also have good reason not to trust mainstream news, given their long history of being marginalized and stereotyped by news outlets. One study, for instance, found that Black Americans consider news coverage of Black people to be overly negative, selective and stereotyped.[13]

While bias is widely considered a reason to distrust a source,[14] the risk is that consumers may use the fact that all news sources are at least somewhat biased to reject anything but those sources whose biases they agree with.[15] Some researchers have found that this habit has given rise to “competing sets of ‘facts’ and interpretations of those facts, driving the increasing disagreement on key issues, and sowing uncertainty about what is opinion and what is fact”;[16] similarly, it may explain why a majority of Americans agreed that “fake news” can sometimes (51%) or always (28%) refer to stories that are accurate, but which portray the subject in a negative light, and why they simultaneously feel that there are too many news sources and not enough to overcome their biases.[17] This may be a result of hostile media bias, which often leads people on both sides of an issue to see news coverage as being biased against their side.[18]

To correct this mistaken understanding of what bias is, we should be encouraging consumers not to reject bias but “to understand news in context, understand the motivations and interests (whatever they may be) behind the production of news, and how news relates to other ideas.”[19] Rather than dismiss a source because its bias disagrees with yours, a better mark of reliability is to see whether that bias compromises its news coverage (by being less skeptical of stories that support the bias, for instance, or ignoring news items that don’t support it) and look at what steps it takes to acknowledge and mitigate its bias.

Key signs that a news outlet is doing this include:

• A commitment to accuracy. While every news outlet makes mistakes sometimes, frequent errors can suggest that accuracy is not a top priority for them. (Dodging this question by reporting on inaccurate stories spread by other outlets falls under this category, as well.)
  • It can be helpful to look over an outlet’s front or home page, and opinion pages, to get a sense of what value proposition it is offering to audiences. Is it selling you news that’s accurate, that’s entertaining or that reinforces your identity and belief?[20]
• Openly retracting and correcting errors. Just as importantly, when an outlet does make a mistake, they should be upfront about correcting it.
• Following a story whether or not it supports the outlet’s political leanings or bias. News and editorial (where the editorial board publishes opinion or analysis pieces) should be separate. Failing repeatedly to cover stories that conflict with their position, or focusing most heavily on stories that agree with it, are signs that bias is influencing the coverage.
• Seeking out and presenting different viewpoints. News outlets have no obligation to amplify hate, harassment or pseudoscience, but in general they should make sure that all sides of an issue are represented.[21]

Outlets can take steps to be more transparent about their coverage:

• Openly acknowledging their viewpoint and possible bias. Including not just what is known about a story but what is currently not known, to help consumers tell the difference between genuine gaps and things that have been deliberately left out.
• Whenever possible, link to original sources, such as transcripts and databases, so consumers can verify the accuracy of what’s being reported.[22]
• Some news outlets post their editorial standards or code of conduct, so you can see what steps they take to make sure what they report is accurate. For instance, the Globe and Mail has their Editorial Code of Conduct posted on their website and also runs a regular column by their Standards Editor that explains topics ranging from their corrections policy to why they choose different words or phrases when covering particular issues.

Outlets can also do things to make their coverage more representative, such as:

• Being careful to avoid words or phrases that reflect the position of one group or another
• Making sure to interview and quote members of marginalized groups affected by the story
• Reflecting on how different groups would interpret the story’s framing and headline
• Avoiding a “horse race” or “existential struggle” frame[23]

[1] Hagar, N., & Diakopoulos, N. (2023). Algorithmic indifference: The dearth of news recommendations on TikTok. New Media & Society, 14614448231192964.

[2] van der Meer, T. G., & Hameleers, M. (2024). Perceptions of misinformation salience: a cross-country comparison of estimations of misinformation prevalence and third-person perceptions. Information, Communication & Society, 1-22.

[3] Chakradhar, S. (2022) People mistrustful of news make snap judgments to size up outlets. Nieman Lab.

[4] Wineburg, Sam, Sarah McGrew, Joel Breakstone and Teresa Ortega. (2016). Evaluating Information: The Cornerstone of Civic Online Reasoning. Stanford Digital Repository.

[5] Iannucci, Rebecca. “News or Opinion? Online, It’s Hard to Tell.” Poynter.org, August 16 2017.

[6] Stecula, Dominik. “The Real Consequences of Fake News.” The Conversation Canada, July 27 2017.

[7] Kahan, Dan. “What is Motivated Reasoning and How Does it Work?” Science and Religion Today, May 4 2011.

[8] Rimer, Sara. “Fake News Influences Real News.” BU Today, June 22 2017.

[9] “Who Makes the News: Global Media Monitoring Project.” World Association for Christian Communication, 2015.

[10] “Who Makes the News: Global Media Monitoring Project.” World Association for Christian Communication, 2021.

[11] “Who Makes the News: Global Media Monitoring Project.” World Association for Christian Communication, 2015.

[12] (2023) Canadian Newsroom Diversity Survey: Final Report. Canadian Association of Journalists.

[13] (2023) Black Americans’ Experiences with News. Pew Research Center. <https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2023/09/26/black-americans-experiences-with-news/>

[14] Newman, Nic and Richard Fletcher. Bias, Bullshit and Lies: Audience Perspectives on Low Trust and Media. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, 2017.

[15] Kavanagh, Janet and Michael D. Rich. “Truth Decay: An Initial Exploration of the Diminishing Role of Facts and Analysis in American Public Life.” RAND Corporation, 2018.

[16] Kavanagh, Janet and Michael D. Rich. “Truth Decay: An Initial Exploration of the Diminishing Role of Facts and Analysis in American Public Life.” RAND Corporation, 2018.

[17] “American Views: Trust, Media and Democracy.” Knight Foundation, January 2018.

[18] Hansen, G. J., & Kim, H. (2011). Is the media biased against me? A meta-analysis of the hostile media effect research. Communication Research Reports, 28(2), 169-179.

[19] Malik, Momin, Sandra Cortesi and Urs Gasser. ”The Challenges of Defining ‘News Literacy.’” Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 2013.

[20] Hopkins, D. J., Lelkes, Y., & Wolken, S. (2024). The rise of and demand for identity‐oriented media coverage. American Journal of Political Science.

[21] Schudson, Michael. “Here’s What Non-Fake News Looks Like.” Columbia Journal Review, February 23 2017.

[22] Rosen, Jay. “Show Your Work: The New Terms for Trust in Journalism.” PressThink, December 31 2017.

[23] (2023) Anti-polarization checklist. Trusting News.