“Contagion is a form of risk assessment with an acutely worrying conclusion. Once it starts on the Internet, everyone's bad mathematics make it explode.”— Mark Pagel, edge.org
“Trump or no Trump, there is an urgent need for some kind of public education program surrounding truth. Few people leaving school or college have been formally instructed in logic, and there is shockingly little public understanding of how knowledge is created.”— Joe Humphreys, irishtimes.com
“Conspiracy theories are corrosive in society at large. When they dictate national policy, they can be lethal.”— Dan Rather, facebook.com
“There is no money. Companies are struggling and firing left and right. The companies that are doing well learned that hyperpartisan content shares better than real news.”— Tim Pool, reddit.com
“I have spent a lot of time this year trying to imagine the mind of a person who finds the Pizzagate conspiracy compelling. What would it feel like to hear a ludicrously tawdry tale about a celebrity you despise, and be so taken with its fairy-tale depiction of evil that you become obsessed? You can’…”— Maureen O'Connor, nymag.com
“The truly professional journalist needs to be a lover of the truth, not just in theory, but in practice! In this way, the client, and society itself will be better served.”— Catherine Dean, su-plus.strathmore.edu
“Good faith with the reader is the foundation of good journalism. Every effort must be made to assure that the news content is accurate, free from bias and in context, and that all sides are presented fairly.”— American Society of News Editors, asne.org
“Journalists must avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety as well as any conflict of interest or the appearance of conflict. They should neither accept anything nor pursue any activity that might compromise or seem to compromise their integrity.”— American Society of News Editors, asne.org
“The primary purpose of gathering and distributing news and opinion is to serve the general welfare by informing the people and enabling them to make judgments on the issues of the time. Newsmen and women who abuse the power of their professional role for selfish motives or unworthy purposes are fait…”— American Society of News Editors, asne.org
“The age of cable news changed our media distribution model by creating a 24 hour news cycle, which meant finding more information and more analysis (THE SUMMER OF SHARKS!) to keep viewers watching. The age of digital news has changed the distribution model in a much larger way: news consumers have t…”— Daniel Ketchell, medium.com
“People believe what they already want to believe, and they want news that already agrees with how they feel. It isn’t new and it isn’t going away.”— Zachary Kagan, medium.com
“This is what scares establishment media types more than anything, not that people are spreading bullshit but that they are no longer in control of what bullshit gets spread.”— Zachary Kagan, medium.com
“Different outlets have been publishing sensationalist, less-than-true stories in order to sell copies since the dawn of print media. In the late-19th/early-20th century they called it yellow journalism, and after that there were tabloids, and after that attention-grabbing radio and TV stories design…”— Zachary Kagan, medium.com
“Why do good work when studies show that this is actually a deterrent to social sharing?”— Ryan Holiday, observer.com
“The Observer knows that the headline ‘Dave Chappelle Told Jokes About Politics’ is going to do less well than its sensational headline about him defending Trump and trashing Clinton (just as TMZ knew they could get traffic out of baiting Chappelle into responding). Just as you know deep down that mo…”— Ryan Holiday, observer.com
“fake news is probably closer to the actual heritage of journalism than truth-telling is.”— Ryan Holiday, observer.com
“The fact of the matter is that Facebook is a whole lot closer to a common carrier or infrastructure than any information-providing service we have seen before.”— Ben Thompson, stratechery.com
“Actually it is the Press, more specifically the daily newspaper...which makes Christianity impossible.”— Søren Kierkegaard, socrates.berkeley.edu