Fake news: The rise of false news stories threatens our nation

In this day of the internet and Facebook, the rise of fake news has become a threat to our democratic way of life. A well-informed public is crucial to maintaining a functioning democracy and there are people out there who would like to see it crumble. Or at least see their falsehoods gobbled up by the public for their own purposes.

That is why it is so important to be able to distinguish fake news from the real thing.

So, who do you turn to to get the real facts? Established news operations go to great lengths to ensure that their facts are correct. For example, The News-Argus does not  print information obtained from anonymous sources. Only in a case where a source's life or well-being might be endangered would we not identify the person publicly. That is because, while information might be true, citing an anonymous source amounts to asking a reader to trust only us, not the real source. We attribute information to a source that can be confirmed independently.

Nothing travels faster than rumors and we consider it part of our job to dispel rumors at every opportunity. We take our role as a news gathering operation very seriously. We have for more than a century and we will continue to do so.

Published in Editorials on May 27, 2017 10:50 PM