Comments on Two Articles for Class



The two articles we were asked to read and discuss for this assignment were "Crowdsourcing truth and how journalists can avoid spreading coronavirus misinformation: Q and A with MIT professor David Rand" by Clark Merrefield and "How Journalists Can Address Mistrust in Pandemic Coverage and Help 'Flatten the Curve'" by Melissa Bailey.

Both articles are focused on how journalists can deal with COVID-19 information and avoid publishing false information about it. 
The first article by Clark Merrefield starts by discussing how social media platforms and news outlets such as USA Today and the Associated Press are teaming together to limit the amount of false news that is spread about the pandemic on social media. 

With everything going on, It hadn't even occurred to me that misinformation was an issue. After reading this first article I realize that it is. Misinformation has been spreading on social media and the internet ever since they were a thing, and I probably come across links to fake articles at least once a week. Rand brings up a good point when he says that headlines are mainly what people see and it can be the only thing people read before spreading that information themselves.
At the end of the day, solving this problem of misinformation on social media relies on people taking a better look at information before they pass it along and social media platforms taking more action against those who don't.
The second article starts by delivering an alarming statistic, "Only 50 percent of Americans trust the information they hear about coronavirus from news media, an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll found."

50% isn't a low number, in fact its half. I find this to be very sad and concerning. People should trust news sources to deliver timely and accurate information. Unfortunatley, that isn't always the case in today's world
The article goes on to discuss better ways that journalists can discuss information so that readers will be more inclined to believe was is actually true.
This article is important because it also helps to bring awareness to an issue not a lot of people are concerned with fixing and should be.

https://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/social-media/coronavirus-misinformation-crowdsourcing-truth-mit-david-rand/

https://niemanreports.org/articles/how-journalists-can-address-mistrust-in-pandemic-coverage-and-help-flatten-the-curve/

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