BuzzFeed's media editor exposes the real problem behind fake news

Even amid the craziness of last fall’s U.S. federal election, it was a rather outlandish headline: “FBI Director (James) Comey Just Put A Trump Sign On His Front Lawn." Most of us might have looked at it, raised an eyebrow and moved on. Craig Silverman not only tried to follow up with the FBI director directly but wound up talking to Comey’s real estate agent. 

In this case, the truth behind the fake news was that James Comey was trying to sell the house in question, and was not even living in it at the time. Basically anyone could have walked up and put it there, where it might have remained were there not suspicions that the FBI was trying to sabotage Hilary Clinton’s campaign. Don’t assume this is the kind of thing that’s unique to the alt-right and the media who support it, however. 

“It comes from both sides of the ideological pie,” Silverman, BuzzFeed News’ media editor, said Tuesday during the annual Atkinson Lecture hosted at Ryerson University’s School of Journalism. “We’ll probably see more Liberal misinformation in the United States . . now they have a target. They can just really go after the Trump factor.”

Long before he joined BuzzFeed, Silverman launched Regret The Error, a site that delved into the way media organizations handled (or failed to handle) corrections to their work. Though Silverman moved from leading BuzzFeed Canada to the global media editor role late last year, to say he has made a bigger contribution to truth in journalism than most people in this country is a huge understatement. 

Unfortunately, his research has become even more critical as technology not only makes it easier to create and share fake news but to cover your tracks. Silverman showed, for example, how those wishing to spread lies can set up a series of fake Twitter accounts to make a story “trend,” then delete the accounts or tweets later. Then there are the “hyper-partisan” sites, like the one that dredged up a year-old video of a black man and some white men who somehow caught fire and tried to suggest it was done by the Black Lives Matter movement (FYI, I’m not going to link to any fake news here). Silverman noted that in that case, the post ended with a call to action that said, “Share if you’re angry as Hell and aren’t going to take it anymore.”

Perhaps most disturbing, however, are the media outlets who try to be above such nefarious practices but wind up covering fake news anyway.

“Sometimes the story only has one source but it’s a good source, so we run with it,” he said. “Other times we write about stories for whatever reason and say, 'Oh, you know, it’s on the edge, but we’ll run it.' It might be an impossible story but too good not to share.”

Why too good? Because, said Silverman (who admirably kept using “we” rather than attack the media from some kind of critical distance), we all get graded on traffic. 

“There’s more of a business model for partisanship now,” he said. One of his final slides read, “As trust in media declines, people search for other sources, and social algorithms feed them more of what they want to hear.”

It’s not like many news outlets would be doing this strategically. In many journalistic organizations, editors and writers now frequently get reports from Google Analytics and the like, but if something goes viral, publishers and sales tend to suggest you should simply do more like that. If nothing has performed well, there’s an awkward guessing game about what’s a hot topic. Hardly anyone does a really good job of studying online traffic patterns -- with the notable exception of BuzzFeed. 

This brings to mind the recent move by Medium.com to move away from ad revenue to what co-founder Ev Williams described as a quest to reward writers based on the value they create. While being truthful and accurate was once the baseline expectation for journalists, Silverman’s research suggests putting facts (no, not “alternative facts") before traffic would be the hallmark of a premium publisher. 

What about revenue, you might ask? If a story is true but doesn’t get a big enough audience, how do you monetize it? It’s possible that certain audiences will pay for access to such content via newsletters or subscription. That definitely seems to be the thinking behind Axios, the recently-launched news service from some of the people who brought you Politico. If you’re paying upwards of $10K a year for a news service (which is what Axios is reportedly considering) the contents had better be true. 

Maybe there’s a more innovative way to finance media organizations that out-perform fake news. If someone comes up with one, I hope they get a chance to share it at next year’s Atkinson Lecture. 

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