The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Pre-Writ Edition: Fake News

Episode Date: September 5, 2019

Fake News. In an age of fabricated or contrived news, it’s incumbent upon voters to ask the tough questions. That’s the topic on this special pre writ edition. Do people willfully spread lies and misinformation? How can we be our own editor? And how do we sort fact from fiction? Thank for subscribing and for submitting a rating and review! * TWITTER @petermansbridge | INSTAGRAM @thepetermansbridge ** https://www.thepetermansbridge.com/ *** Producer: Manscorp Media Services

Well, hello there. I'm Peter Mansbridge. This is another preview edition of The Bridge, my look at election 2019. Beware, beware, beware. A lot of people are warning you to be really careful about what you believe out there. In an age of contrived and fabricated fake news, stories spun by certain interest groups or certain political groups, spun for their benefit, not yours, or stories spun by other countries as a way of interfering in our process, there's lots of stuff out there to beware of. Canadian journalists are now getting into a

have-caution-about-the-news-you-consume mode, and they're doing it in a big way. There are special websites, special podcasts. I spent a few hours the other day with a production company working for the Canadian Journalism Foundation. The CJF has developed a series of ads, PSAs they call them, public service announcements. They promote action that news consumers can take

along the lines of doubt it, check it, and call it out. That's doubt it, check it, and call it out. It's a national campaign to help educate Canadians on how they can spot and then stop the spread of disinformation. They've come up with some unique spots to showcase this, and just to be fully transparent, I agreed to be in one of those spots because, well, I think it's a worthwhile cause. Carlton University journalism professor Chris Waddell is in Ottawa. He's a board member of the CJF. He's also my former boss as he was the bureau chief in the Ottawa Bureau of the CBC at one point. Anyway, I tracked Chris down by phone

and we had a short chat about this new program. So Chris, what's the point in this? Well, Peter, the point really is to address the fact that the world has changed in terms of how we consume media, what media we see, and how we get media. In the old days, people used to watch television newscasts or get newspapers, and all that material was edited for them in terms of people had made decisions about what was factually accurate, what was important, what was things they thought people needed to know. We're now in a world where we have to be our own editors.

We see material from lots of different places and lots of different sources. We can subscribe to many different publications, see things on websites. And we get a lot of material. Most people get a lot of material forwarded to them through social media. And many people don't have the ability to actually determine what's accurate, what isn't accurate, what's fact, what's disinformation, what's misinformation. So the whole purpose of the campaign is to say you should doubt what you see. Doubt it first and then check it out and find out what's accurate and what isn't accurate.

Is it just as bad here as it is in the States? The social media component would make it sound like it is, but there's been so much attention to the questionable information flowing in the States. But is it just as bad here? I don't think it's quite as bad here in some cases, but where it is is bad or where it's important to note the difference. And this is where I think Canada and the United States are similar. We have an interesting breakdown in generation.

Young people are used to seeing lots of different things from different places and in many cases are pretty skeptical. But people who, I'll say older people, but people who have been traditional newspaper readers or television watchers as they tend to um they if you look at people who pass things around on social media before bothering to determine whether they're accurate or not it tends to be older people rather than younger people is what is what suggested. So, and what we're trying to address in this is really the degree to which things get into the information world without anyone asking any questions about, is it accurate? Is it up to date?

All the questions you would ask if you were a journalist or if you were an editor before you published something to help people be their own editors and help people make better decisions both about what they should read and what they should believe and also what they should share with their friends to make sure that they're not inadvertently sharing things with their friends that might be propagating lies, propagating misinformation, distorting information, doing all the things that we see in the United States

and that we also see here in Canada too, particularly in an election campaign. Do you think that this can make a difference? Because I wonder about that, calling it out, naming it. I think calling it out makes some difference. Hopefully, the way this campaign is structured, it's not that serious in terms of we're trying to deliver it with a fairly humorous message in some cases. And the sort of thing that if someone was sitting around a table and someone said something, you'd look at them and say, are you really sure that's true? If you can deliver it in some ways a lighter way or with a little bit of humor or something in message makes people remember it, I think we have a better chance of actually reaching some people. And again, with social media, if you reach some people and if you're able to persuade some people that they should encourage their friends to check on the factual accuracy of things before they attribute them to their friends, then maybe progressively over time, you do make some difference. You won't reach everyone, but education is often a long-term process and you have to

start somewhere. Okay. Here's the last question. And it's based on the fact that we live in such a polarized world now. Once again, it's more polarized, it seems, in the States than it is here, but we are showing strong indications of polarization among voters. It leads me to the point sometimes where I think that some people just simply don't care if it's true or not,

if it fits their mold. I think there's a degree to which that may be true, but I also think that although it may appear on social media or it may appear in some ways we're polarized, I'm not sure as people we really are polarized. I mean, I think as individuals, some people will prepare to yell at someone who has a different point of view. But I think a lot of people are still prepared to listen to them, may disagree with them. But there's respectful ways to disagree. And the virtue for people who want to be disagreeable, the virtue of social media is you can do it anonymously, and it's a little more difficult to do if you're actually face-to-face with someone. So I agree there is a degree of polarization, but I also think there's a willingness on the part of people to actually – I don't think people willfully want to – there may be a few, but I don't think there are a

lot of people who willfully want to spread lies and misinformation. Maybe I'm naively confident about public attitudes or what's at core in people's beliefs. But I think if you try to point out to them when something's wrong, and most important, try to point out to them that they should be skeptical, to doubt it, to sort of say, do your research. The best question a journalist can ask anybody they're interviewing is, how do you know that? And that's probably a good question for you to ask friends when your friends say something that to you at least sounds a little strange or sounds out of character or even just may not seem like the right sort of thing to be passing around. How do you know that?

Well, be skeptical. Be your own editor and try to sort out facts from fiction and certainly distribute facts, but also be prepared to call out people when they're circulating fiction which may be malicious and may not be malicious. All right. Dr. Christopher Waddell at Carleton University in Ottawa. Thanks, Chris.

Thanks very much, Peter. If you want to know more about the CJF plan, check out their website, doubtit.ca. That's doubtit, one word,.ca. So good for the CJF for getting into this and helping empower readers and viewers and listeners to bell some cats. And keep in mind, you are the ultimate referee, and your voice has power, so use it. Okay, so the pre-campaign update for tonight. Well, we're in what I like to call the phony war period of the election campaign. Everyone's ready, everyone's firing broadsides at each other,

but until the writ is dropped, that's the terminology you know, the campaign hasn't even started. Leaders are trying out their one-liners that they're bound to use when the real thing begins. Lines about themselves, lines about others. The advanced people are making sure those early crowds are organized by the parties and that they'll be significant and not embarrassing. At the riding level, workers are ready to rush out the signs to lawns that want them and while they've been knocking on doors for months now, the serious door knocking is about to begin.

There's lots of behind-the-scenes stuff going on. Campaigns, you know, they're intense, especially for the people on the inside, not just the candidates who face the pressure of personally winning or losing, but the campaign workers, many of whom are working for next to nothing or nothing because they believe in the cause. Friendships are made that can last a lifetime, and friendships that have lasted a lifetime can be broken over bitter disagreements on campaign strategy.

I've seen examples of both in all the parties I've covered over the years. There's almost always at least one party that will have a rough go in the campaign, and the fight becomes more internal than external. While it starts in private, it often goes public, and that's when things can get quite ugly. All the longtime party pros have seen it happen before and it's no fun. Tonight with days to go before the real action starts they're all hoping if it does happen again this time it happens in a party other than theirs. Well that's another preview edition of the bridge as together we await the start of election 2019. When the campaign does start, I'll be trying to do the bridge each weekday evening. I'm guessing it's going to run around 10 or 12 minutes, sometimes

shorter, sometimes longer. The idea is to give you a bite-sized evening sense of what's happening and why. The latest guessing game, by the way, on when the start is, is somewhere between this Sunday and the following Sunday. That's just a guess. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks for listening.