Thoughts on News: How Fake News is Influencing Journalist

As the Internet continues to expand, it is also continuing to evolve the major news world. And as print journalism sales are trending downward, it makes me wonder how our news is changing, for better and for worse.

On the positive side, news can now reach anyone, anywhere, at anytime. Language barriers no longer prevent people from reading news, as online translators are at everyone’s fingertips. Articles can be shared instantly and the truth can be revealed, as the power rests more in the hands of the people rather than big news organizations.

But with that power, comes responsibility. With all this instant “news”, it is becoming increasingly difficult to filter truth from the “fakes news”.  According to PolitiFact, “The popular website BuzzFeed analyzed the interest in these fake stories and found that they got more shares, reactions and comments during the final three months of the campaign than real stories from the New York Times, the Washington Post and CNN, for example.”

While there are fact-checking sites available those who want to ensure that what they’re reading is true, it seems nearly impossible and incredibly inconvenient to filter through the hundreds of thousands of articles shared on a daily basis. True researchers and journalist are working hard to have their writing published, but sometimes these great pieces are slipping through the cracks.

Social media platforms, like Facebook, are working diligently to come up with a better filtering system for the news articles that are shared on the site. But until then, it is the responsibility of the reader to do their own research and be aware of the digital world that is around them.

 

Thoughts on Movies: Are Critics also Journalist?

At the time I saw the film, Get Out, it had a rating of 99% on Rotten Tomatoes. Here are the rankings of some other films:

Moonlight 97% Current Oscar Winner
Pulp Fiction 94% Best Pic Nomination / Winner Best Screen Play
Return of the King 95% Won 11 Oscars including Best Picture
Goodfellas 97% Nominated for 6 Oscars

When I went to see Get Out, I was expecting a cinematic masterpiece. I had incredibly high standards for a film with such high ranking, and I was utterly disappointed to say the least.

The reviews for Get Out seem to amount from the critics being afraid to call the film mediocre for fear of being labeled out of touch, not culturally relevant and in extreme cases, even racist. I have long considered the art of film making and the review process sacred, thus my disappointment leaving the theater after seeing the film.

While Get Out wasn’t a horrible horror film, I certainly didn’t see the revolutionary contributions it made to world of film and production. The gush of “it’s so revolutionary,” or “it hasn’t been done in cinema” is quite a stretch. I was hoping for some intricate, tightly woven social commentary, which is suppose to be the main selling point. The problem is that “deeper meaning” was all hype and what you are left with is a film that should of been ranked about 70%.

And I wonder if, sadly, our cinemas quality will be determined by those on social media and not the keen eye of learned critics. Critics, like Journalist, should have a keen understanding of what it takes to report the facts based on experience, knowledge on the subject, and desire to tell the truth rather than tell what the masses want to hear.

Like the other highly ranked films above, it takes a brilliant director, production team, and writers to create revolutionary film. It is hard to create something that has never been done before, but there are films out there that show through technique and timing, it can be achieved. Unfortunately, Get Out didn’t do it for me.