Faking News: Fraudulent News and the Fight for Truth

The rise of fraudulent news and the erosion of public trust in mainstream journalism, due in part to a deliberate campaign of denigration, pose a looming crisis for American democracy and civic life. It is our hope in this report to spotlight the dimensions of the problem, call out its serious implications, and stimulate greater urgency across multiple sectors of society that have a role to play in addressing it.

Among PEN America's recommendations:
Educators should “adopt news literacy education as a core part of school curriculums.”
Social media networks such as Twitter and Facebook should “identify purveyors of fraudulent news . . . and take steps to ensure that they are not able to sustain themselves and profit from access to advertising services on your platforms.”
Social media networks also should “develop additional ways to offer users content that may differ from their own beliefs or views, in ways that are transparent to users and sustain their control over what they see.”
News outlets should “emphasize transparency of operations as a high priority, including finding new ways to be more open with readers about the journalistic and editing processes and the handling of errors.”
News outlets also should “clearly label different types of content as reporting, commentary, opinion, analysis, etc.”