How To Navigate Today’s Media Environment When So Many Are Working To Mislead You

On October 30, 1938 at 8pm Eastern time, Orson Welles aired his now legendary radio drama The War of the Worlds. Audiences were mesmerized —not just because the story was so compelling, but by the innovative news-style format that blurred the lines between fiction and reality. Many listeners genuinely believed Earth was under attack by Martians.

Yet the panic that ensued wasn’t just due to the style in which the H.G. Wells’ story was presented, but because people were still getting accustomed to the new medium of radio. Few had built up requisite media literacy to discern between fact and fiction. To them, the fake newscast was as real as anything else they’d heard.

Today, we face a similar challenge, on a larger scale. Social media, digital platforms, and foreign influence campaigns have created an environment where misinformation thrives. At the same time, research from Pew finds that only about a third of US adults say they “often” get their news from traditional sources. We need to better discern fact from fiction.

Understanding The New Media Business Model

The news media, like any other business, follows the basic laws of economics. To be successful, they need to pay out less in production costs than they take in revenue and to do that they need to navigate basic principles of supply and demand.

The way media businesses earn money is through attention. Decades ago, there were only three major networks in the US and they attracted the most eyeballs. Today, as the Pew Research makes clear, there are far more choices. News organizations need to compete with not only far more channels, but platforms like TikTok, YouTube and podcasts.

Another challenge is the cost of reporting, which is enormous. It’s expensive to send trained journalists across town just to cover City Hall and to send them to a place like Ukraine requires an entire team and tens of thousands of dollars a day. There are very few organizations with the resources to afford that.

At the same time, there’s no shortage of people with opinions on things. A podcaster like Joe Rogan or Theo Von can have whoever they want on their show to express any opinion they want, regardless of their experience or expertise, at minimal cost. It is also relatively easy for a nation state, like Russia, or a billionaire like Elon Musk, to influence those opinions.

That’s how a successful project to boost early child development across the Middle East becomes portrayed as a wasteful effort to create “Iraqi Sesame Street.” Or how government subscriptions to a service that tracks policy, legislation and regulations are twisted into supposed evidence of corruption. At any given time, there are multiple actors trying to deceive us—and no shortage of “useful idiots” ready to play along.

The Value Of Expertise

The line between reporting and punditry can often be hard to discern. Reputable news organizations assign their journalists to particular “beats” so that they can cultivate sources and develop expertise. For example, Roger Lowenstein has covered Wall Street for decades, David Ignatius focuses on national security and Bob Woodward on Washington.

Sometimes even honest and well intentioned analysts who lack the necessary expertise misinterpret facts due to missing context. For example, when Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014, many outlets reported that the country was evenly divided between Ukrainian and Russian speaking parts and lacked a national identity.

The truth is far more complex. Yes, if you looked at the data in 2014 roughly half of the country reported speaking Russian and half Ukrainian, but the reality is that Ukraine is a bilingual country and many people in the Donbas region which is now disputed speak Surzhyk, a creole of the two languages.

Here’s how Timothy Snyder, an expert on the region and who speaks Russian and Ukrainian fluently, explained it at the time:

Ukraine is a bilingual country. Electoral posters are in both languages. Candidates switch from one language to another on political talk shows. The giant banners on government buildings that read “One Country” are in both languages. If you watch a soccer game on television you might notice that the man doing the play by play speaks Ukrainian while the man doing color speaks Russian: almost all Ukrainians understand both and most speak both. If you go to a coffee shop you might find a polite waitress who adjusts to the language she thinks you speak best. No country in Europe is more cosmopolitan than Ukraine in this respect.

Those are things you would have to spend time in the country to experience. You would have to study the country’s history to understand its national identity goes back more than a thousand years, while Russia’s is much younger and less grounded. In fact, Russia was essentially a vassal state of the Mongols until Ivan the Terrible rebranded it in 1547.

None of this is obvious or simple and the reality is far more complex than I can do justice here. We need to approach things with some humility and look at sources with a skeptical eye. If someone is expressing an opinion, we need to ask where it is coming from? What is their level of experience or expertise? How long have they spent with the subject?

We all fall prey to biases, such as the availability heuristic, confirmation bias, motivated reasoning and affinity to our tribe. That’s what we need to constantly guard against.

The Anatomy Of A Conspiracy Theory

With the media favoring opinion over reporting, it’s become far easier for conspiracy theories to emerge. Nation states and other interest groups proliferate them to further their own agendas. Social media algorithms are designed to favor divisive and emotional content over that which is complex and nuanced. We need to learn to recognize telltale signs so that we can build up our defenses to stories designed to manipulate us.

The first thing to watch for is a secret, monolithic and infallible cabal. Anybody who has spent time in any significant institution knows that there are always a range of opinions and levels of competence. Things tend to go awry and information gets out. So the assertion that there is some all-powerful, secret organization controlling things behind the scenes should immediately arouse suspicion.

The second thing to watch out for is a lack of clear evidence, which is explained away by the presence of that all powerful, secret organization controlling things. This is more than a little convenient because it allows the person spreading the conspiracy theory to assert that the lack of evidence is actually proof that something is afoot.

Finally, the story is designed to provoke negative emotions, such as fear or anger. There are never conspiracy theories about nice people working to help us. There are always dark forces evoked that trigger a dopamine rush and spark outrage. When you turn on news channels designed to manipulate you, you will be immediately inundated with stories of people trying to hurt or cheat you. Your outrage is their business model.

Building Up Your Defenses

Conspiracy theories used to be relatively rare. Sure, we had lots of people claiming that the was a moon landing was a hoax or that Elvis is still alive, but today we are inundated with falsehoods ranging from the complex narratives of Q-Anon to the idea that there are secret biolabs in Ukraine and that its president came to power in a coup. If we are to avoid getting duped, there are a few simple rules of thumb to follow.

The first is to consider whether you are hearing from a primary, secondary or tertiary source. Primary sources have first-hand knowledge, either because they are reporting from where an event is happening or because they have underlying knowledge or expertise. Secondary and tertiary sources are merely passing on what they have heard from others.

The second thing is to look out for how your own emotions are triggered. The dopamine rushes that come from negative emotions are addictive and many media business models are based on them (recent claims about USAID fit this pattern). If you find yourself tuning into outlets that are constantly driving fear and anger, you need to apply a more stringent standard of proof.

Third, we need to apply a critical eye and demand extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims. Yes, it’s possible that there are secret, infallible organizations that affect our lives in important ways but leave no trace, but we should be very doubtful, especially when the news comes from YouTube, a podcast or social media.

Perhaps most of all, we need to understand that many have significant incentives to mislead us. Fighter jets are expensive, but social media personalities and bot farms are relatively cheap and nation states like Russia, China and Iran, as well as billionaires, corporations and other interest groups, invest heavily in them to shape what we think.

Getting misled has little to do with intelligence or education. We simply need to be more careful.

Greg Satell is Co-Founder of ChangeOS, a transformation & change advisory, an international keynote speaker, host of the Changemaker Mindset podcast, bestselling author of Cascades: How to Create a Movement that Drives Transformational Change and Mapping Innovation, as well as over 50 articles in Harvard Business Review. You can learn more about Greg on his website, GregSatell.com, follow him on Twitter @DigitalTonto, his YouTube Channel and connect on LinkedIn.