Let’s talk about being honest.

“Stop right there, Ben!” you say, affronted by this opening line. “That’s not what this article is about!”

Well, dear reader, I’m afraid that’s exactly what this article is about.

We live in a world where it’s slowly becoming harder and harder to deduce what’s real and what’s fake. It sounds like I’m on about AI and its increasing capability to create realistic videos and images, and yeah, I am. But in this article, I’d also like to talk about misinformation.

Image Credit: Miranda from Pexels

"Credible" Sources

If you’ve ever been in the public school system before, which is, like, 99% of the people reading this, you may have heard any teacher go on about the importance of “credible sources” while researching for an essay assignment. You’ve heard this information, you’ve nodded at Ms. Johnson as she paced around you, talking about “.org” sites, perhaps you’ve even noted it down in your 4th-period notebook.

Then you’ve gone home and acquired 90% of all your information from Wikipedia anyway. Don’t worry, I won’t judge. We’ve all done it at some point. Wikipedia’s the real journalist here.

Anyway, the reason why Ms. Johnson spent the start of fourth period talking about credible sources was because of how dangerous misinformation can be.

Let me show you.

You’ve been told, or at least seen, harmless lies before on the internet. It’s small, stupid stuff most of the time. Dumb Titanic theories, flat earth, that one Furby story that I refuse to be real.

But sometimes it’s more serious. AI-generated content, making up incidents that never happened. You guys remember that one time Grok went crazy and kept saying that the Holocaust never happened?

It’s not always explicitly intentional stuff, either. You might see a lot of bias. I could get political about this, but that’s a bit of a minefield right now. But my point is that bias and certain affiliations do influence truth and bend the objective version of the story.

I mean, it’s a bit hard to tell if real news stories are true anymore. Recently, to protest the Trump administration's deployment of troops in Portland, Oregon, people held a naked bike ride to oppose the decision. I don’t know how, or why, or what, but it did actually happen.

That’s not even going into the great frog resistance or the chicken man. Maybe Portland’s just crazy.

Take the Quiz: Religion, Schools, and Equality

Religion in Schools: Teaching Respect, Not Bias.

Good Journalism

So what makes good journalism?

Well, for one, you want to get your message across. That's the whole point of writing anything. You want to tell all your readers something, whoever they may be.

In this case, I'm trying to tell you what I think good journalism is and means. Other articles might be different; they could be talking about tornadoes, that new building at Harvard's entrance, or food. As American journalist Tom Rosenstiel wrote,

“The first task of the new journalist/sense maker is to verify what information is reliable and then order it so people can grasp it efficiently.”

Plus, not lying would be really nice. For some reason, people these days find it really hard to be honest. Scamming, AI stuff, whatever.

Sometimes there’s not even really a reason. There are just lies floating around with seemingly no discernible purpose.

So yes, honesty is a virtue. Good journalism shouldn’t have lies in it.

Image Credit: Hazelwood from Pexels

Objectivity is also important. That’s where the whole bias thing comes into play. As Christiane Amanpour once said, “Objectivity doesn't mean treating all sides equally. It means giving each side a hearing.”

You want things to be objective; you don't want to let your personal bias affect your writing. Luckily, this is an opinion piece, so I have full rein, but I digress.

“Well, okay,” you're thinking once more. “But that’s just two general things about journalism! What do you think is important?”

Don't worry, dear reader.

Let’s talk about engagement.

Having someone’s attention is very important nowadays. After all, it’s the only universal currency that will always be in use. Everyone’s trying to get their hands on yours: big companies, YouTubers, scammers, those little advertising blurbs on the BuzzFeed webpage, me.

You can do a lot of things with attention. You can convince someone to buy things, move someone’s hand towards that like button, or show more people pictures of your cat, Meatball. All that good stuff.

Unlike money, though, attention needs to be given willingly, which is where being engaging comes in. Grabbing attention (and grabbing it fast) is a pretty high priority for me in journalism. If the article isn’t engaging (the only exception would be if it were a hard news article), then why read it at all?