(upbeat music) - Welcome to At Issue.

Thank you so much for joining us.

I'm H Wayne Wilson.

The term fake news, it's been around for a little while now.

It, according to Google Trends hit its peak in the fall of 2016 with the presidential election.

But it has origins more than a century ago to the best of my knowledge, its first use was in 1891 in a newspaper called "The Buffalo Commercial".

And in an article it said in part, "there is no genuine taste for fake news".

Now there are people who would dispute the fact that there might be some genuine tastes for fake news right now.

But in order to clarify fake news and to more importantly, talk about information literacy, where better to go than a library.

And in fact, we're going to do just that because we have the Executive Director of the Peoria of Public Library.

Randall Yelverton is here.

Thank you for joining us.

- Thank you for having us today.

- So would you dare want to offer a definition of either fake news or information literacy?

- Well sure, fake news is often appealing, often attractive but it is not real news.

It is not even, it's not even news.

It is a fake story.

It gives the appearance of news.

So it's more likely to be shared and by others, but no, fake news is not real news.

Even with its popularity.

- So quite often we see the term information literacy.

- [Randall] Sure.

- And of course, libraries can be a source but there's many other sources.

But what I wanna dwell on at first is we get a lot of information through the internet, whether that be parlor whatever it might be.

We get a wealth of news but how do we determine whether we should believe it or leave it?

- Right, right.

Well, so we do, as you mentioned, we have so much news coming at us, so much information coming at us every day.

The internet's been great for democratizing information.

Somebody with a note pad and desire can go out there and get good information and release it to the public in ways that were never possible before.

Citizen journalists, things like that.

And that's a good thing but there is so much bad information out there as well.

As you mentioned earlier, information literacy is so important.

People need to be able to learn how to distinguish in this vast amount of information that we're getting all the time.

What is reliable?

What is good?

What can I share with people and have confidence in that this is a news worth sharing and informing my own life as a neighbor, a citizen in my community.

- If I might, you referenced the fact that it's a good thing that more and more people can disseminate information.

- [Randall] Correct.

- But that's could be a bad thing.

I mean, because every everyone today with technology is a publisher.

- Right.

- At one time it was just newspapers.

Then it was newspaper, radio, then TV and there was a certain trust.

And now everybody is a publisher - Right.

It's probably harder to hide bad news and to hide bad information, at least on national stories.

And that's a good thing because I think the public has a right to know, in all in government operations.

So it's good to be able to share that information broadly and the fact that it is so easy for people to enter into publishing, there's a low barrier, right?

If I wanna go out and put out a YouTube series about my hikes and have that, give that a relatively professional look, I can do that.

That's awesome.

That's great.

But it is so easy to produce something with poor intent, delivering poor news that looks professional.

In the old days, you used to be able to if something had a relatively professional sheen, you could be sure or more sure that it was probably reliable and we are losing that more so of that ability to discern from its professional appearance - You mentioned the term intent, and I'd like to talk about that for just a moment with regard to there are different kinds of information that are not necessarily accurate.

So let me explain.

- Sure.

- There's misinformation.

- Sure.

- And there's disinformation and there's malinformation.

So misinformation might be what?

You could without intending harm.

- Right.

It's not necessarily a, sometimes it can be an oops.

All right.

And I think that is a lot of what's driving the sharing of fake news or bad information.

It's people genuinely believe it's true.

And that's could be example of misinformation - Disinformation on the other hand might have might be more onerous in nature.

- Yes.

I think there's a lot of bad actors right now that are sharing this information.

Whether that be, maybe just in our nation or those who are maybe wanting to affect our nation.

So coming from outside our country, governments and things sharing disinformation in order to sway our public.

- So intentionally wanting to cause some sort of disruption or harm.

- Right, right.

- And then there's malinformation, which if I understand that correctly.

it's really genuine information but once again, harm is intended.

- Sure, sure.

I think you're correct in that there are those who are sharing malinformation.

There are some things that it is better for the safety of all that not be shared.

Some information is best kept close to the vest and those with poor intent can't release that information even if it is true.

- So I'm sure there are several people in the audience are saying, okay, come on H, let's talk about QAnon.

Let's talk about it QAnon It has developed legs that are just beyond what I ever imagined.

- [Randall] Right.

- And some of these statements are so outlandish that even on the surface you don't need to do much homework to figure out that this isn't true yet it's spreading.

How can something like QAnon and I'm sorry for expressing my doubt about QAnon but they believe in it.

- [Randall] Sure.

- But how does something like that get carried away like it has?

- Well, you have the social media platforms which can be put to very good use.

They're very, they can be very helpful, but they are very they're good vehicles for spreading bad information quickly.

And I think some are maybe even built that way to make that information more readily available.

If it's gonna get clicks, it's gonna be shared.

So that can lead to some poor information.

But QAnon I think what, combines celebrity gossip and political gossip.

So it's a hot button, hot button thing.

- And it occurs to me that it's in those, I don't mean to offend anybody, but it seems to be mostly false information and false information from my perspective seems to spread more quickly and widely than truth does.

- No I agree.

I think false information oftentimes confirming our biases and it's outrageous, and those are two.

Those make us want to share it.

Like, look, look at this information.

It says exactly what I believe.

So look, here's the proof and we want to be quick to.

We want to be the first one to share it.

That's very tempting so that we will have people looking to us and looking.

This person has the scoop.

- But if you wanna be first in, at the forefront of spreading this new information, shouldn't you sit back and say, let me take a moment to think before I click.

- I agree.

The temptation of course is to share it quickly.

But we urge at the library, where we think information literacy is so important.

We do urge people to take a step back if it confirms exactly what you believe.

Give it a minute, do a little bit of research.

I think oftentimes in these stories a little bit of cursory research can reveal so much so quickly to show you the truth or the lack of truth of the story.

- What role does the library play?

And I mean, it's obviously it's a resource and the library is so much more accessible today than it used to be when you had to go to the library.

What role does the library play in setting the facts where they should be?

- Sure.

Well, we have information professionals there who had devoted their lives and their educations to learning how to discern good from bad information so they can share that information with others.

So we can help you person to person.

We can help you over the phone.

We can help you via our website whether that is personal consultation or using the resources that we've curated and made available to the public.

We have great online news databases.

We have great resources in print that we have in our library that our staff can help you use.

And that are going to make it easier for you to discern good from bad information.

And we know everybody's very busy.

So, if you do have an information question and you're like, well, I'm not sure about that.

You can ask our staff, give us a call and we can start doing some research for you and come back with an answer.

- But isn't part of the problem that when someone sees a new piece of information and it happens to align with their particular preconceived notion that, Oh yeah this is good.

I'm gonna send it to my aunt or my brother or what have you.

- Yeah.

Well, I've certainly fallen into that trap before of sending an it story that was, that confirmed my biases, sharing that with family or friends and being told, hey this is not correct.

And for an information professional, that's a low point but.

- That's not often though is it?

- No, it is not often.

And those instances have been instructive both showing me how easy it is to be reeled in I think by these situations and to see how false information works and how the sharing culture which often promotes outrageousness, sharing outrageousness over seeking out truth.

- Do you think, at least in part that people with preconceived notions and we all have preconceived notions, but that it be at least partially responsible for the success of some of the extreme sources of news, whether that be Newsmax on the right or MSNBC on the left or any other source.

Do you think that's part of the issue here?

- Yeah, I mean, we talked about disinformation and I think there are some bad actors who are spreading disinformation in order to affect events.

But I think some of the poor information is because clicks, clicks are money.

Traffic is money.

So that's, you can sell more ads.

So some folks are just spreading, you know some companies, some websites are just spreading bad information because it drives people to their site.

And that is power of temptation I think for so many, so many companies - It's a fast paced world, but one of the recommendations when you receive new information that you weren't sure about is to slow down.

- Right.

- I don't know how easy that is, but - No, I agree.

Take a moment.

As I mentioned, if it confirms exactly what you believe even give it a little more scrutiny because that's often the greatest temptation - You need to check who sent the information to you.

- [Randall] Right.

- Where you found the information?

Why you received the information, things of that nature.

And I think we don't, we have to get onto the next thing.

- Yeah.

- Oh well, either stick that in the back of my mind for further use or, oh here.

- Yes.

It's easy on these social media sites to see all information as equal.

A story from the Washington post can look a lot like a story from your high school friend.

They are framed the same way, they look nice.

So sometimes it's hard to discern one from the other.

- So it is part of the problem that we don't read past the headline quite often, because we're also busy?

- Yeah, yeah, so a headline can be not entirely true but if it drives clicks that's what people are seeing and focusing on the headline, I think you're exactly right.

But we are just the library, check the sources and then we of course have some good people on staff who can help with that too.

- So a fanciful headline might be called clickbait.

- Yes, definitely, definitely.

- So, because it's fast paced, still you're suggesting that we take a moment to at least find more information about this.

To maybe read the article or to find the source of the article.

Randall I don't have much time.

- Sure.

- Maybe you should just settle aside.

- I think that's good.

I think you also need to be start cultivating sources that you can trust.

News is the first draft of history, right?

Rough draft of history.

So news is not always going to be 100% correct but we can over time judge the relative reliability of our news sources.

So start by picking good sources.

That's going to make your information gathering so much easier.

- Otherwise you might be outsourcing your judgment.

- Right, right.

We don't want to do that.

We want to, I think all of us have the ability with a little bit of care, a little bit of practice to develop information and media literacy these skills.

There are muscles we can strengthen as we approach information.

- But one of the things I have found especially on the internet is just about any sources is that, okay I get this piece of information.

Oh, that's interesting, I wonder if that's true.

And so you go on Google or Yahoo, what have you and you search it and, oh it's popped up four times here.

- Right.

- In different headlines.

But that information is there.

But if you read the article, they're all the same.

- [Randall] Right.

- There was an original source or an original single source.

- Right.

- So it's hard to discern an accuracy of a particular article, if you find it four other times and don't look a little more deeply.

- Yeah.

But I think what you're presenting here is a good information gathering step.

If a story confirms what you, maybe it's confirmation bias or says something outrageous that you don't necessarily believe is to go to other sources.

If you're seeing that repeated elsewhere from reliable sources and you dig deeply in you can find that this is probably more accurate.

- But you might be going to a web, we use websites for a moment here.

- Sure.

- But you might be going to a website that was set up with a particular name.

- Right.

You do have still have to look at the source.

And if you're seeing it in Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, Reuter, the Reuter services, Reuter's AP.

If you're seeing this story repeated chances are it's going to be more accurate, but you're right.

A false story can be farmed out to 20 different sites and that can drive up the appearance of accuracy.

So you have to look at the source of the story.

- So the one of the big questions is we want to counter fake news but we wanna protect free speech.

- Right.

- [H] That's a difficult balance.

- Right.

- Do you have some recommendations on how we might do that?

And because fake news has become so prevalent in society and the argument always has been you're infringing upon my free speech rights.

- Right.

Well, as a librarian, I'm a big believer in freeing the information making the information free, making it available to others.

But I think as citizens, as neighbors, it is incumbent upon us to learn how to review our news, our information critically.

It's just, it's a responsibility.

You have to take your trash out to the street.

You have to shovel your sidewalk.

You need to, in order, when it's snowing so that people can walk past your property to the same extent you need to be developing news and information literacy.

It's just, it's a citizen's duty.

I think at the library we can help with that, on our new website which we're gonna have available here in a few weeks.

We're we have an information literacy section which presents a lot of great resources, PolitiFact, Snopes, some information from the Annenberg Foundation that helps people cultivate good news resources and check the news and information they're getting.

We want to help people cultivate those skills.

It's I think it's the, one of the most pressing issues here in the 21st century.

If we don't get on top of it, it's going to be a huge problem.

- Annenberg, is a good source that I've used in the past, snopes.com.

But also the center for news literacy, a lot of resources there.

And it's put together by a university personnel I understand it.

Okay, can you tell me a little bit more about that particular center?

- This is one of the areas, one of the sources that we have on are going to have on our new website, but among others, it helps people learn to cultivate those information and media literacy skills.

So I'm very much in favor of the work that they're doing.

- I love technology.

I love Photoshop.

I'm not any good at it, but I think it's really valuable but so much is wrong about it.

- Right.

- But once again, here we go to that.

Woah that's really wild.

That's a neat thing.

- Right.

- It's been photo-shopped.

- Sure.

- Is there's some way to maybe not just with Photoshop, but some way to recognize when something has been tampered with - This is going to become even harder and harder I think as we head into this deeper into this century that video effects, photo effects are going to become even harder to discern.

You can see a lot of really good versions of that now sometimes done in just for fun.

But that is a developing frontier and we do need good organizations that are gonna help us discern the real from the fake.

And I think it's probably safest if you can't confirm that it's true, don't share it.

Eventually you'll see a site like Snopes come around but they're a not-for-profit.

They have their hands full to fact check some of these photos, videos.

But it's best sometimes to wait.

- So what I'm hearing is in today's hectic life it's the speed versus accuracy.

Well, I'm just gonna take care of this real quickly.

And we should, once again, go back to that, slow down, check accuracy.

- Right.

I mean, all of us think bearing false witness is a problem.

Sharing poor information at about a neighbor.

We wouldn't wanna do that.

We would, people would question our judgment.

They would start to not trust us if we were doing that a lot.

And I think we have that same responsibility when sharing information.

Even if it's about people we don't know, celebrities, politicians.

It's tempting because they're powerful and they're far away but we don't want to share misinformation.

It reflects poorly on us.

- And maybe I should have tied this in earlier with the conversation.

But when I mentioned you get a piece of information you go to the website and you see four different headlines but it's the same article if you read the article.

So the repetitiveness of fake news quite often is a verification.

Well, I've seen it.

How many times it's gotta be true.

- Right, right.

- And so I'll add to it by clicking.

- Yes, further driving up the traffic towards that fake story.

So it's best to take a step back, cultivate some good news resources against which you can check it.

You can check out with us at the library use some of our online resources.

We have great newspapers, databases, take a minute slow down and use those media literacy muscles that you've been developing.

- I wanna take a look at a 2018 MIT media lab study.

This was a study of 126,000 stories.

And it goes back to that in looking at those 126,000, the stories that were fake spread much more quickly - [Randall] Right.

- Than the accurate stories.

- [Randall] Right.

- So in this era of media outlets, the news portion of media outlets.

Where the staffs are shrinking, there are fewer options for us to have, to seek the truth.

- [Randall] Right.

- A concern to you?

- Yeah, I think we're seeing local, particularly local news outlets across the country, local news reporters.

It's getting smaller and smaller.

It's consolidating under bigger and bigger umbrellas.

So it's harder to have you have good reporters but there are fewer of them.

- I'm not questioning the reporters, I'm just, it's raw numbers.

- Right, and I just didn't want to give that impression that I was, but yeah, no, there's fewer people reporting on local stories.

And so it's harder to get good information.

- So does this opened up an avenue for the library to play a broader role.

- Sure.

A lot of the information that reporters reporting on is available in our forum.

You can get the minutes of different meetings, those are available.

We can direct you towards that.

There are sites like that we have access to.

Magazine and journal articles, which are some of the first resources for so many of the studies.

We can point you in the direction of that.

So that maybe there is a little bit more legwork sometimes.

We can point you in the right direction.

We can find those good solid sources for you.

- And, and we've talking about journalism.

Is there a difference between journalism and information?

- Well a journalist is what simple synthesizing the information, puting out, trying to pick out those things that are most important to their readers information that you gather.

It's sometimes in a little more raw form.

So you're having to do a little bit more of the discernment on your own.

I think both are you useful.

- And there's difference between news and opinion.

And I think sometimes there's a very blurred line between the two and we tend to say, oh I heard it on this person's show, it's news.

- Yes, exactly.

It's you particularly see that?

I think in prime time and a lot of our on a lot of the news channels, they're primarily devoted to opinion and the lines are blurry.

So that's hard to discern sometimes.

- And finally, there's a difference between evidence and inference.

Because quite often, well I read that and I'm inferring that.

(Randall laughs) - Well, that's what a journalist will help you oftentimes times, right?

They'll make good inferences.

They're draw connections between different pieces of evidence.

Sometimes when all we have is the evidence in front of us.

It's hard to, to connect to the dots and a good journalist can help you do that.

And certainly that's important.

- Oh, Randall, this is a fun topic but at the same time, it's such a serious topic.

- Yes.

- And while we can laugh about it at times, we really have to sit down and start to tackle this issue of fake news or information literacy.

- Right, I agree.

- So Randall Yelverton, the Executive Director of Peoria Public Library and formerly at the Washington Library.

- That's correct.

- [H] Thank you so much for joining us on At Issue.

- Thank you for having me.

- And we'll be back with another edition of At Issue as we do every week.

So please join us then for At Issue.

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