How “fake news” has twisted the way we search for the truth

News outlets have been a critical piece of our political system even before our country’s conception. From Ben Franklin’s “Join or Die” cartoon to Alex Jones and his various conspiracy theories, the ability to freely express our views on any topic is so important to today’s American society and was so important to our founding fathers that it is the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Granted, there has always been a touch of bias in these news sources protected by said amendment. And this bias does not go unnoticed.

President Donald Trump’s exposure of media’s bias by calling it out as “fake news” has been a good thing on the outset. By bringing attention to the various biases in news, Trump has supposedly opened a door for us to challenge news sources to work at eliminating those biases and deliver more factual news, but the opening of this door wasn’t Trump’s intent at all.

Trump didn’t challenge news sources on their biases, he challenged them on their very existence. Trump’s now famous phrase “fake news,” coupled with the new saying “the enemy of the people,” shows just how he plans to attack the media. He wishes to undermine the trust that Americans have in media outlets and further polarize our political climate.

The current political climate is one where anything the other side says is wrong based solely on the credibility of the news source or credibility of their political party – not the validity of the claim. While this has always been the case amongst Americans, “Fake News” exacerbates this and has a very authoritarian flavor to it.

It is authoritarian in the sense that whatever Trump or the government says is the truth, that only President Trump knows the facts and anyone that doesn’t agree with him is wrong.

Using the term “enemy of the people” is something out of an Orwell novel and something that only a Totalitarian regime would tell its people to avoid any ugly truths which might appear.

While I agree with Trump on certain things and disagree with him on others, the damage he has caused around the way we perceive the truth is dangerous and something that must be addressed as a bipartisan issue.

No other modern President before Trump has even come close to attacking the media at this magnitude. People can now dismiss the truth since opposing views are “fake” and thus are false and can’t be trusted. Instead of separating the wheat from the chaff and exploring what is bias and what is truth, people just throw the baby out with the bathwater.

If you blanket something as “fake news” then it’s false and if it’s perceived to be false then you can’t debate it since the claim is wrong. By having that claim be wrong then we can overlook absolute truth and settle for something that we perceive to be the right “truth.”

With the Information Age in full swing, the amount of information people can access is relatively infinite.  You can always find evidence to support your claim – no matter how ridiculous.

The search for the absolute truth has fallen by the wayside and the drive to be “right” has taken the wheel. This can lead to people becoming polarized at a faster rate than ever before.

Everyone believes the truth they hold is correct and that their truth should be considered the superior truth. Anyone who goes against this superior truth goes against their idea of common sense.

We’ve created a culture where debating someone’s self-determined “truth” is impossible. President Trump’s preoccupation with “winning” has taken its place. We have gone from wanting to know right and wrong to wanting to win.

Trump’s claims of “fake news” have created an all-out suspicion and negation of factual truth for what it is.

The solution needs to be on the viewer or listener to suss out the media’s biases, but also understand that facts are facts and truths and truths. This can be done by consuming news from a variety of sources like Fox, CNN, MSNBC, The National Review, etc. The truth will repeat itself over these media outlets.

If we consider all information that is being provided to us we can begin to acknowledge truth for what it is: indisputable truth.