Norman Lear offered a terrific take on fake news in The Hollywood Reporter magazine.
Among the points he made:
- False stories were more likely than real news articles to go viral on social media
- We’re more likely to pay attention to the final source of an article — the person who calls it to our attention — than to the original source.
The answer, Lear claims: “There is an urgent need for more and better civics education in our schools, and that must be joined by efforts to foster media literacy and critical thinking.”
There in lies the rub — to quote a source whose authenticity is still in doubt.
People are not all rational human beings like Mr. Lear is. Humans are selfish, greedy and needy. We believe what we want to believe, what makes us comfortable and what is believed by the