Given the rush of outrages over the past few months, it’s hard to prioritize issues that matter. For me, the priority lies with issues that, if left unaddressed, will undoubtedly hurt or kill people.
You have read my concerns regarding Ukraine, with lives and freedoms hampered by disinformation. The disinformation in question, like the bogus yacht claims or the misattribution of the firing of Ukraine’s chief prosecutor, originates from Russian websites and accounts but ends up on the lips of key officials in the Trump administration or popular anchors on Fox News.
However, there are other threats to life beyond Ukraine. For example, there is the USAID fiasco, where drugs and medicines that WILL save hundreds of people’s lives abroad are on hold. This is no exaggeration given the freeze on anti-retroviral drugs used for HIV-positive toddlers in Kenya. Furthermore, broader disease prevention and containment efforts will be severely hampered by the decreased funding and participation of the United States abroad.
I will not pretend that USAID was ever a perfectly efficient organization, given the contractors and bureaucracy. However, the idea a man with a net worth greater than the bottom eighth of humanity just decided to dump everything in the trash instead of fixing it disgusts me.
USAID, like Ukraine aid, was partly a victim of a disinformation campaign. With our own Press Secretary falsely claiming USAID was funding “transgender operas in Colombia” or a “transgender comic book in Peru,” the groundwork for the annihilation of USAID was laid. The basis of the fact-checking performed in such cases is also being falsely questioned.
Politico was accused of receiving between $8 and $34 million from USAID when it only received $44,000 in subscription fees. Given these exaggerations, perhaps more people would benefit from a subscription.
Disinformation is not unique to America, given the prevalence of bots targeting German election frontrunner/conservative Friedrich Merz. What is unique in the American case, however, is the network of well-established media outlets ready to support or, at the very least, not explicitly deny this disinformation. Fox News has made a tradition of this, made clear by the Dominion settlement and the texts revealed in the aftermath.
While anchors are usually acutely aware of reality, some have prioritized viewers’ engagement over news reporting or critical analysis. I do not pretend that any media institution never gets things wrong. However, some anchors do smirk when asking leading questions to “own” an interviewee or end a demonstrably false statement with a question mark so they are not technically lying. If this sounds familiar, it may be worth considering a new news source.
Thus, I believe anyone who spends significant time in diverse media streams realizes certain organizations do this significantly more than others. Even outside of news organizations, a CU-Boulder study found both the far-right and far-left wings of American social media users were responsible for sharing a disproportionate amount of disinformation, which I have seen in practice.
The gatekeeping of news before the social media era meant audience participation in news dissemination was limited, but now, the role of audience participation/sensationalism has skyrocketed. Although there are trustworthy social media figures, the net effect of this trend is tilted toward dishonesty.
Thus, combating this trend requires greater audience awareness. Cross-checking stories, identifying the backgrounds of sources and authors and other middle school-level literacy skills must be exercised. The solution to this dark trend is not to call out the use of fact-checking but to perform it more often. It may require the swallowing of egos, including mine, but the net effect will save and improve lives.
Janagan Ramanathan is a Sartell High School alum, former U.S. Naval Academy midshipman and current aerospace engineering major at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.
