Truth Decay Lives On

By: Anne Stone

The election may be over, but Disinformation and Misinformation are not going to stop. We must all continue to be diligent. Here are some interesting facts that you may not have known about this very important topic.

• The Country that is most resilient about Disinformation, according to the Media Literacy Index, is Finland. Students there are taught to determine if a news article is legitimate or is not, as part of their regular curriculum. The News Literacy Project is working with many schools, but this very important topic is not required in most school districts, and most adults do not know how to discern the difference or how to fact check.
• There were more than 140 Statewide measures on the midterm ballot in 39 states that were written at an average reading level of grade 19! That’s graduate school reading level. This is up from grade 18 in 2021.
• There were also 66 measures that had a summary next to the ballot question on the ballot. They were at the average reading level of grade 18! No wonder people are voting based on advertisements, not facts.
• In a recent poll, also published by the News Literacy Project, Disinformation was felt to be a problem by 91% of the adults surveyed. This was across party lines with 80% of the Democrats and 70% of the Republicans agreeing that misinformation/disinformation increase political extremism. Many of those surveyed said that they are taking steps to avoid misinformation or curbing its spread from deciding not to share the content to using fact-checking tools. That is what we ALL should be doing.
• From a recent Ballotpedia article, anyone can file to run for President of the United States with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC). In 2016 and 2020 a combined 2,998 individuals filed to run. In 2016, 1,786 candidates and in 2020, 1,212.

If you know of group(s) that would benefit from our “Fight Truth Decay! Combat Disinformation” presentation, please email international.relations [at] lwvorangecoast.org (Kathleen Montgomary) to get on the schedule.