While there is still much attention paid to the partisanship of news organizations , a big gap exists in our understanding of how journalists handle misinformation and debunk lies for their readers. During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, fake news dominated social media and was perpetuated by false claims made by then-Republican candidate Donald J. Trump on Twitter. National news organizations committed a great deal of time and space to stop the spread of “alternative facts” and inform voters, yet the effectiveness of fact checking during the election was questionable, as we have seen with the rise of Trumpism.
My research looks at the activity on Trump’s Twitter account during the time between his nomination and his election. Specifically, I will examine factors such as the authenticity of his tweets, and the accuracy of his claims, whereas likes, and retweets will be examined for significance. Based on these data, my research seeks fact checking articles from most-trusted news organizations and unravels how journalists respond to fake news that spreads on Twitter.
More specifically, my research explores the following questions: Is fact-checking an intuitive reactionary component or a strategic decision put in place to guarantee maximum impact? Is fact checking the shortcut to winning back public trust? The results of this study might provide valuable insight on standard journalistic practice and potentially change how we perceive truth in the news.
“Where did we go wrong?” must have been the most asked question among journalists in the aftermath of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. National publications like the New York Times, the Washington Post and even smaller local newspaper with the circulation well under 500,000 have dedicated time and labor to fact check. Journalists take fact-checking politicians seriously because democracy goes hand in hand with well-vetted news and informed voters. Journalists in America are protected under the First Amendment because their job is so crucial in electing the most ardent and deserving public servants.
However, Donald Trump was no politician, and his way of going around the politics of Washington was unprecedentedly ingenious. His Twitter was more powerful than any spokesperson in reaching his support base. For example, in the first presidential debate, the total engagement on Twitter amounted to 17.1 million interactions, making it the most-tweeted debate ever. Trump was mentioned in 6.3 million tweets, while Clinton was mentioned in 2.7 million tweets. In short, Trump’s supporters and opponents were way louder than Clinton’s.
Of the 33 claims in the first presidential debate, most Clinton’s claims ranged from half false to true, whereas most Trump’s claims ranged from half true to false.
By further invalidating partisan and news organizations, Trump distanced himself from both the political and media establishments. Trump defied what people thought he should be doing, inasmuch as ignored others’ expectations of how a presidential candidate must behave. By going against conventions, Trump was able to mount his own power and independence so that his words mattered in the eyes of potential voters who were looking for a change. The charm and name brand of Trump eventually gave way to the surge of never-before-seen waves of fake news, conspiracy theories, and intuitive assumptions.
In a nutshell, a simple process such as claim - disprove - distrust - claim didn’t seem to resonate with many Americans who took for granted verifiable sources. However, many journalists shared the blame by how they chose to react to the fake news. I base this research on the reactions of journalists when fake news was distributed on Twitter by Donald Trump on a regular basis. I hope to shed lights on the outdated practice of fact checking in reporting political news and share with you some recommendations on effective fact-checking.
With more than 31,000 tweets, Donald Trump’s Twitter is an archive of what might have been the most successful use of social media in a U.S. presidential election. Trump told the Christian Broadcasting Network that he prefers Twitter because he wants to work around the mainstream media’s filter.
“When the media takes my message, knows what my message is and then writes it purposely so it doesn’t sound good, I’d rather do Twitter,” Trump said, less than two weeks after taking office.
Trump got on Twitter in 2007 and used it as a platform to express his personal opinions. However, Trump’s Twitter was fraught from day one with disparaging opinions and later unverified and made-up facts, which galvanized troves of supporters as well as opponents. By the numbers of retweets, likes, quotes, and replies, during the period after Trump’s GOP nomination and his election, Twitter told a story of a successful candidate with high public engagement rate.
From 07/18/2016 to 11/08/2016, Trump made a total of 1,430 tweets, garnering 41 million likes and 15.9 million retweets. Based on AP and M.I.T. analysis published May 2017, likes and retweets indicate approval while replies are more likely to come from left-leaning users who disagree.
Fact-checking news articles of the same period told a different story. A post-truth world was more pessimistic.
The split between Donald Trump and journalism dated back to the 1970s when Trump was a New York City socialite. In the 2016 election, Trump was no longer a reality TV star but a serious contender for the nation’s highest office. His claim that “Mexicans are rapists” propelled his political ascend, but it was completely unfounded.
PolitiFact, the vanguard of political fact-checking, reports that its web traffic for 2016 more than doubled compared to 2015 (54 million page views to nearly 115 million page views). The demand for the truth has been on the rise. In 2017, PolitiFact’s page views are ahead of where it was last year, when people were voting, according to Aaron Sharockman, the executive director of the organization.
What is the best way to fact check politicians’ claim?
The threat of misinformed voters is so great to democracy that many journalists dedicate their time and labor to refute false claims. The Poynter Center stipulates some guidelines for media bias/fact check.
There claim’s evaluations are as follow:
TRUE – The statement is accurate and there’s nothing significant missing.
MOSTLY TRUE – The statement is in general accurate but may need additional information or clarification.
MOSTLY FALSE – The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that may give the wrong impression.
BLATANT LIE – The statement is not accurate at all and makes a ridiculous claim.
This true/false scale is also used to determine the veracity of tweets considered within the scope of this research.
Additionally, Canadian press has “the Baloney Meter” and the Washington Post has “Pants on Fire,” of which fact-checking articles are preserved digitally by the Duke Reporters’ Lab at Duke University.
While the Twittersphere brimmed with arguments from both sides, mainstream journalists were more tilted in their opposition to the then Republican candidate. Two days before the election, only two of the top 100 largest newspapers in the U.S. endorsed Trump. The number was 57 for Clinton.
Many studies have been done on the partisanship and perceived bias of news organizations during the 2016 presidential election. However, to generate the biggest amount of hits, fact checking could be a little bit boring, compared to reporting on the cat fight that went on constantly thanks to Donald Trump.
Ask yourself what did you remember most about the election? Was it the rigged system by Clinton against Trump? Or the infighting between Trump and the Republican Party? Or was it the feud between Trump and Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, and Rosie O’Donnell? If you can’t seem to keep count, the exact number of people Trump has picked a fight with is 394.
This strategy worked out wonderfully for Trump, who managed to tweet lies and unverifiable facts amid fights without real repercussion from the public.
Take the events during the Republican National Convention as examples. The third night of the convention, Ted Cruz denounced Trump with a surprising speech that stunted the arena. Trump then went on Twitter behind the stage and made a series of tweets to barrage Cruz and his speech.
“Wow, Ted Cruz got booed off the stage, didn't honor the pledge! I saw his speech two hours early but let him speak anyway. No big deal!”
A few factual problems with this tweet that journalists had taken into consideration. Was it true that Trump saw the speech two hours early and still let Cruz speak anyway? Did Cruz sign a pledge to support the nominee no matter who that was? What was this pledge anyway?
One thing we know for sure is that there is no documentation of Cruz’s pledge and that the pledge itself is non-binding.
Journalism caught on with this and generated in total 4,700 related articles around the world. Many journalists focused on the rift between Cruz and Trump as well as the supposedly internal fighting in the GOP. Only a few cared to elaborate on or verify the claim.
Although it was not as crazy as Trump’s claim of Ted Cruz’s father’s involvement in JFK assassination, Twitter proves once again the perfect place for Trump to say anything he likes and however he wants it.
Twitter’s response to the tweet is very interesting. According to a research on Trump’s Twitter, likes and retweets signify support and consensus whereas replies indicate opposition. The specific tweet above has 68K likes, 20K retweets, and 10K replies. Most users were already drawn into this rift after weeks of tension between Cruz and Trump after Trump spoke about Cruz’s father and wife during interviews and debates.
For the purpose of my research, I gathered and examined two datasets: Trump’s tweets and news articles related to those tweets between his nomination (June 18, 2016) and the election (Nov 8, 2016). After doing so, I ranked the tweets by the number of likes, and narrowed my collection of tweets to the top 40 most liked. When finished, I closely discerned which tweet had a verifiable claim that I could confirm based on a scale of 0 to 5, with 0 is false and 5 is true. The top 40 have some truth, but 20 out of 40 tweets are false or based on no evidence. From this handful of tweets, my research turned to Westlaw Research Database for news articles containing the same tweets.
By looking at the different ways journalists covered lies and fact checked, my research focused on finding the rationale of fact-checking practice and decisions during the 2016 presidential election in relation to Trump’s Twitter.
Although fact-checking candidates during races was not a new occurrence, the 2016 presidential election witnessed a diversification in the practice and a boom in the numbers of claims and resources for fact check.