To Fight Fake News, Philanthropy Must Invest in Helping Citizens Sort Out Truth From Fiction

America has been under a disinformation assault from within and outside our borders.

The urgency to counter this threat — especially for nonprofit organizations that depend on an engaged citizenry — can’t be overstated. When people don’t know what information is true or false, constructive political dialogue breaks down and political and civil dysfunction reign. We’re witnessing that now and must make every effort to stop the bleeding of our democracy before it’s too late.

But in the rush to respond, policy makers, technology companies, and media organizations have overfocused on finding convenient solutions. That’s why we must turn to philanthropy to support and advance one solution that’s urgently needed, proven to work, yet woefully neglected: equipping citizens to distinguish falsehoods from the truth.

President Trump and others frequently place blame for disinformation on news organizations, charging that they do not report accurately. Others have struck out at online sites such as Facebook for not doing enough to filter out “fake news.” While both tech companies and media outlets need improvement and regulation, they are not the primary problem in America. They are easy targets that obscure the central role citizens play in maintaining a vibrant, informed democracy.

To be sure, journalism in America could be stronger. There’s an acute crisis among local news outlets, for instance. But by world standards, American journalism is pretty good. Most coverage of most news stories is mostly accurate.

Compare that to the media and information landscape in Eastern Europe where my organization has worked for decades to train journalists and improve the vibrancy of information systems. There, many outlets are owned by oligarchs who distort stories to advance business interests or are organs of Kremlin propaganda. News outlets in America are flawed, but enough major outlets report the truth that it’s out there — prominently — for citizens to find.

The other major player in disinformation are the social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Those are best thought of as stages upon which citizens act. People pass on bad information to other people. Those who pass and those who receive both have a responsibility to ensure that what they are reading is accurate. The companies that run these networks can only do so much to regulate what citizens share with each other. Sure, they could do a better job eliminating fake accounts or improving algorithms that serve up what you see. But that’s not going to prevent you from believing an article — or a wholly unsourced rant — shared by a trusted friend.

Neutrality Is Key

The solution then is to equip citizens with the skills to discern fact from fiction. That’s a skill people must learn, and the research shows all groups, highly educated or not, are susceptible to manipulation unless they have received specific training. Information literacy is about teaching citizens to pause, check their biases, and investigate whether something is accurate. It’s about teaching people not what to watch but how to watch it.

Philanthropy has a particularly valuable role to play in spreading this solution. Citizens who receive information-literacy education must view the trainer or sponsor as unbiased. People will tune out trainers who suggest a participant’s preferred TV channel is too conservative or liberal.

They’re more likely to trust a nonprofit supported with private donations to do the instruction. Given its nonpartisan, nongovernmental nature, philanthropy can play the role of neutral backer of these efforts — encouraging citizens to seek the truth, not a specific version of truth.

Information Literacy

Philanthropy can also make an immediate impact by putting significant sums into information-literacy programs.

Investing in elementary and secondary education training is important, yet some critics worry we won’t see the impact until a generational turnover. But that’s both an impatient view of how a democracy is nurtured over time and an outdated view of how to conduct information literacy. Today it can be taught outside of the classroom to Americans of any age, broadcast on TV or gamified online.

For example, an evaluation of an information-literacy program that my organization, IREX, conducted in Ukraine — a country awash in propaganda spread by the Kremlin and others — showed immediate impact on people young and old.

We trained 15,000 citizens of all ages on information-literacy skills through libraries and other community centers. After the training, participants demonstrated a 24 percent increase in their ability to distinguish real news from fake news. We saw more immediate — and widespread — effects on the 2.3 million Ukrainians exposed to a public-service announcement. Those who saw our TV PSA registered a 14 percent increase in their desire to seek out different sources of information.

In many Eastern European countries such as Ukraine, information literacy is just one part of the solution to countering disinformation. But in those parts of the world, it is equally important to build up professional media outlets to report accurate information that citizens otherwise would not hear.

America is different. We have press freedom and prominent media organizations that report accurately — most of the time. To protect ourselves from disinformation, we don’t just need better journalism. We also need philanthropists who invest in making sure all citizens have the skills they need to separate truth from fiction.

Alex Cole is director of strategic communications at IREX, a global development and education nonprofit, and formerly a strategy and communications consultant to foundations.