FATIMA D.

DIPATUAN ELT 210- MN1

Fake News in the Public Consciousness and News Media

Thesis Statement: The term fake news has become the buzzword among journalists, politicians and

news media.

Have we ever asked ourselves the question of what is fake news and how it became popular

term in our country? A fact-checked that Filipino loves to create and adapt words to go along with

the trends. The term fake news according to Lank (2017) a former journalist and essayist that there

is a big difference between fake news and false news. It only became popular when Pres. Donald

Trump stated the thing presented in the outlets he dislikes is fake news.

(https://www.wuwm.com/post/essay-fake-news#stream/2019). Also, fake news is commonly known as

junk news, pseudo-news, or hoax news. It‟s consists a deliberate disinformation or hoaxes spread

via traditional news media and online media. But what about the real news? How are we going to

determine the real and fake news?

Real news is presented by real news resources, it is written by reporters with the degree in

journalism and their primary goal is to inform. If you are mad, scared or anxious you need to

investigate the articles claim. Lastly, real news can be verified and you will be able to find reports,

statistics and real news articles that are supports your readings. Also, we must not disregard the

principles of journalism and real news; journalism first obligation is the truth, loyalty to the citizens,

essence of discipline of verification, practitioner must be independent from those they cover, serves

independent monitor of power, provides a public forum for criticism and compromise, must strive

the significant, interesting and relevant, must keep the news comprehensive and proportional ,

practitioners are allowed to exercise their personal conscience and citizens to have the rights and

responsibilities when it comes to the news. Also, real news is free of bias and political propaganda.

On the other hand fake news is categorized into two types: misinformation and disinformation.

According to David (2019) that misinformation is false information which unintentionally

disseminated on online platforms. “There is no propaganda intention, mostly this is no political

intention,” she said. Disinformation is intended to convince online users to favour a group or

individual political perspective. “Disinformation is orchestrated, it is funded, and it is planned. In

politics, it is run by professionals”. Associate Professor Arao (2019) of journalism department in

the University of the Philippines said that it could be because of the journalist is not able to properly

gather all the information for a story. Another problem of fake news which Prof. Khan (2019) a

former chairperson of journalism department in UP said that if a journalist is given a wrong

information by his/her sources then the journalist is reporting a false news.

(https://www.up.edu.ph/index.php/tag/fake-news/2019). The government always accused media of

disseminating fake news that is why the public needs to be informed on how fake news is generated

and disseminated. The hallmarks of fake news in social media are how these supposed news stories

try to agitate readers or consumers. The problem with fake news is it mimics the reportage of more

establish news media organizations. These purveyors of fake news mimic websites with similar web
addresses or URLs like „gma-tv.com‟ masquerading as gmanetwork.com/news. False stories online

also fuelled by political beliefs ad ideologies these days. Since fake news undermines democracy.

Prof. Khan states that “they will drown out legitimate voices in favour of paid voices that want to

skew public opinion”

In order to prevent fake news from escalating in the public‟s consciousness a journalist must

have a good understanding of the issue being reported and the sources used or else, the reporter will

risks providing the wrong information to his superiors and unwitting public. Social media plays a

vital role not only in the proliferation of disinformation and misinformation but also in the fight

against the spread of the same situation. The people should be more discriminating about the news

information. People must not easily accept hooks, lines, sinkers because fake news is always along

with the truth or real news. And in order to stop the fake news we should not share it with other

people and it is an obligation of not adding the proliferation of fake news in the country. To ponder

this things Arao quoted “if you fall for the lies, then you tend to fall for the purveyors of such lies”