Susan Campbell wants you know better than to believe the above headline.
Headlines like that one (thought not that specific one) have been spreading with sonic force on the internet. They have become known as “fake news.” Some analysts (citing no peer-reviewed hard data) argue it may have determined the 2016 presidential election.
Campbell traffics in real news, as a Hartford Courant columnist and University of New Haven journalism prof. She is scheduled to discuss the evolution of the problem and how to fix it at an event titled “Fake News: Citizen Arm Yourselves!” It takes place at the New Haven Museum (formerly known as the New Haven Colony Historical Society) at 114 Whitney Ave. on Wednesday, Feb. 20.
Admission is free to the event which begins at 5:30 p.m.
Campbell spoke at the roots of fake news, from Octavian smearing Mark Antony in 44 BCE, to Thomas Jefferson’s accusations of fake news against the Hartford Courant, in an interview Tuesday on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program. She offered hope for battling the phenomenon through, in part, media literacy training.
Campbell also spoke in favor of a drive by Courant reporters to unionize.
And She Revealed The Secrets To A Prominent Politician’s Sordid Love Triangle Involving Russian Bots!
Just kidding.
Click on the Facebook LIve video below for the full interview:
