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Friday, March 29, 2024

Discerning consumers

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There was a time when it was difficult to know what was going on. There were few sources of news and even fewer media outlets to carry very limited versions of what was happening. People were at a loss, uncertain whether the news they were getting approximated the reality on the ground.

These days the opposite is true but no more reassuring. Advances in technology have made the news available through various channels. Worse, there are several versions of the news, depending on who is carrying it. And so there are legitimate stories, fake stories, and everything in between.

That they are readily available and easily made to appear indistinguishable makes it doubly hard for news consumers—who may want to appear informed despite being in a hurry —to tell them apart. Fake news, dated news, or satirical posts that beggar belief are shared conveniently on social media.

In our case, it is difficult to apply the test of incredulity. Government leaders sometimes say the most unbelievable, irrational, impassioned things that we are asked to use our creative imagination to know what they are talking about.

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It does not make the job easier, but it’s a job that must be done.

Six years ago, Filipinos were called the second most gullible race on the planet—in a fake news site which some quarters blissfully believed anyway. There is no such study but there is indeed a sad propensity to believe everything we see without examining it.

Consumers of news should consider the source—the website and the author of any story, and check to see if the story is carried by other media outlets as well. A red flag should go up if nobody else is carrying the story.

Nothing, however, beats the habit of being critical of anything seen and heard in this age of free and fast-moving information. Some disseminate fake news for irresponsible fun, some precisely to poke fun at and criticize government. But some motives are more sinister, and that is to sow misinformation, confusion and division all while consigning the public to darkness and stupidity.

Filipinos must reject this insult to their intelligence by being discerning consumers of information all the time.

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