Exploring blurred lines: facts in the media

This week, my students at the University of Groningen are writing an opinion piece, a fun assignment that lets them voice their views openly, but with evidence, like joining a debate team.  No longer restricted by stiff academic writing, they are being encouraged to share their perspective and stimulate healthy debate.

In class, I showed them a short video of Andrew Rosenthal, former editorial page editor of the New York Times, discussing how to write an opinion piece. Rosenthal emphasized that while opinions are personal, facts are not. This distinction is crucial because the line between facts and opinions is often blurred on the internet, which rewards loud, sensationalistic voices. But Rosenthal also told  Oxford Blue that in American and British journalism, “the idea that you can only publish verifiable information died a long time ago.”

This made me wonder: what are facts, then, and can we agree on them? My conclusions led me to three distinct ideas:

1.     Facts are socially constructed and fluid

The Truth in Journalism Project, founded by fact checkers Allison Baker and Viviane Fairbank, takes a comprehensive, ethical approach to facts. “If you don’t have verification, you aren’t really doing journalism,” says Baker in Pen America.  Both founders recognised how people exist within different information environments and communities, which influence what they consider facts. They emphasise thinking critically about how we process and manage information, applying compassion and ultimately, encouraging public discussion (urging collaboration between journalists and their sources—akin to Solutions Journalism).

2.     Facts are verifiable but subject to revision

I can’t help but thinking of scientists creating and testing hypotheses. Scientists are prepared to discard their assumptions to disprove their ideas as all hypotheses are falsifiable. The good thing about research (and life, for that matter) is that it is self-correcting, meaning scientific ideas, discoveries or facts are continually debunked and revised. Sometimes this happens after centuries, sometimes after a decade. So, facts change—think of smoking. If you asked a doctor in the 1950s about cigarettes, he or she would have said, “They’re great, pal! Go finish a pack!” (Ok, arguably knowledge of health risks was suppressed by the tobacco industry). But light one up today, and you’ll get a lecture. However, fundamental truths (such as gravity, or historical events) remain unchanged.

3.     Misinformation and bias distort facts

We live in a time of misinformation and if you add cognitive bias—the tendency to accept information that aligns with our existing beliefs—to the mix, facts can be rather elusive.  Our intellect and left-brained logic make us overestimate our ability to analyse and assess situations fairly. Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung once said, “…the judgment of the intellect is, at best, only the half of truth.” The other half is anchored in our emotions. Meaning, that while we are convinced we’re being logical, our unconscious emotions are swaying our sense of objective reality.

Peter Canby, who headed The New Yorker's fact-checking department until 2020, once said fact-checking is a "moral act.” I agree. We need facts to inform us, yet we also need to be aware of our cognitive pitfalls and like scientists, be willing to self-correct.

So, how should we navigate facts in a world of misinformation? There are many good websites devoted to this but I’d start here.  Consider checking out multiple sources, seeing if information is being sensationalised (is it clickbait?), or leans towards a certain political point of view; spend time looking at raw data, and try to discover your own cognitive bias—this takes work, but encourage yourself to see the bigger picture.