Sylvia Kline ‘28

On Tuesday Oct. 29 the Barbara Walters Campus Center welcomed a panel of experts in journalism, social media and politics to discuss the prevalence of misinformation in America.

The panel included Sarah Lawrence writing professor Marek Fuchs acting as the moderator, author and journalist Jeffery Rothfeder, Sarah Lawrence politics professor David Peritz and, Zeve Sanderson the founding director of NYU’s Center for Social Media and Politics.

Sanderson opened with a brief presentation in which he stated that misinformation is projected to be the number one problem within the media over the next two years, and it is widely regarded as a technology issue. He also highlighted that despite the amount of discourse surrounding misinformation and social media, misinformation is actually only a small minority of the typical online media diet. Furthermore, Sanderson said that while the public had always been misinformed, the dominance of biased news and appeals to online algorithms is completely unprecedented and ahistorical. Because of this, political elites act as the central nodes in mainstreaming misinformation.

Peritz also presented briefly and focused more on the social conditions of misinformation rather than the technological concerns. He highlighted the ways in which members of each political party occupy different media ecosystems, and find themselves in a revolving world of confirmation bias. Peritz stated that Fox News pioneered this model of media when they began regulating content not for incorrect information, but rather for publishing things that violated their audiences' preferred perceptions and as a result, pushing them to get their news elsewhere. In order to retain their devoted viewers, they were forced to publish content favorable to their audience and politicians who benefit from those voters have no choice but to align with this ‘favorable’ coverage—creating an unrelenting cycle of misinformation and lies.

Lastly, Rothfeder focused primarily on his past experiences as a journalist and interactions with rapidly evolving technology. He recalled the late 1960s when researchers classified the computer as a powerful machine, eventually capable of being the thing closest to emulating the human mind. Rothfeder credits this as our original sin—being aware of its power but never implementing any guard rails and just letting it freely evolve. We very well could’ve established restrictions on this powerful technology, but didn’t and largely haven't. Rothfeder warned that large, influential tech companies like Meta and Google have been misusing information and will continue without the necessary guard rails.

Once each panelist had given their individual testimonies, the moderators opened up the floor to the student audience for questions, and each panelist gave their own unique perspective to student questions regarding media bias, the upcoming election, and trust surrounding journalism corporations.

To ensure that you are using and citing credible sources, the SLC library has plenty of resources and tools available here.

Misinformation, Journalism & Politics: A Brief Recap