Fight against misinformation’s corrupting influence

In this season and others, keep a lookout for bunkum and bullspit, then track down the truth. Be forceful, accurate and direct. Call out falsehoods and show your work.”

The first principle of the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics is “Seek truth and report it.”

This time of year, I think it’s equally important that we all keep an eye out for horsesh** and report on that, too.

Fact-checking during election season is nothing new, but the sheer amount of misinformation, disinformation and unmitigated bull-hockey swirling around the web these days presents an increasing challenge — readers are far more likely to encounter fakery than facts, especially as they retreat into political and cultural bubbles on social media.

A recent reminder came from the claim made during the Sept. 10 presidential debate that Haitian immigrants in Springfield (Ohio, in this case) were stealing dogs, cats and other pets and eating them.

I’ll admit to getting a chuckle out of that one, especially after seeing social media comments from various public information officers in Springfield (Missouri) offering condolences to their comrades in the other Springfield. The real-time fact-checking by ABC moderators at the debate was soon followed with in-depth debunking by other outlets, offering plenty of verified facts for the curious to find.

The next morning, when one of my reporters asked if we ought to do a story ourselves, my first thought was “Surely, this idea is too dumb to live.” But my second thought was, “A few more facts in the world can’t hurt.”

We published a story — one of our most-read of the week — laying out the false claim and the context, explaining how it transformed from a baseless post in a Facebook group to a national headline. In hindsight, we could have written 10 more. A week after the debate my Facebook feed is still full of unfounded conspiracy theories posted by family and friends unwilling to let go of an idea they want to be true, proof be damned.

The difficulty of proving a negative is part of what makes such false claims so effective, of course; debunking each piece of “evidence” doesn’t rule out the existence of another that’s yet to be unearthed. All we can do — what we must do, according to the code of ethics quoted above — is keep filling our newspapers, and the world, with facts.

In this season and others, keep a lookout for bunkum and bullspit, then track down the truth.

Be forceful, accurate and direct. Call out falsehoods and show your work.

Interrogate the “evidence” and prove or disprove what you can; explain what’s been mischaracterized or taken out of context and don’t be shy about labeling things as unproven, baseless or unsubstantiated. Fight the urge to write off any fact-check or story as too obvious.

When the world is a monetized mess of memes and misinformation, facts — no matter how old or seemingly self-evident — are news. Seek them out, report them, share them with your readers. This time of year, they’ll see plenty of the other stuff.