Here is the presentation that accompanied the introduction to the Fall 2023 Senior Seminar in Journalism Ethics.

1. Journalism Ethics
JRN 450
Course Introduction
Prof. Hanley

2. Course
Introduction

3. Disinformation:
Information that is
false and deliberately
created to harm a
person, social group,
organization or
country.

4. Misinformation:
Information that is
false but not created
with the intention of
causing harm.

5. Useful Idiot: A person
or persons who
unwittingly spreads
disinformation and is
targeted with
disinformation
because they are
known to spread it.

6. Disinformation is a
form of population
manipulation, which,
in turn, is a subset of
psychological warfare.

7. It is practiced by
military or political
party teams
committed to
manipulating public
opinion online.

8. Social media
Individual targeting
Automated fake
accounts (bots)

9. Human fake accounts
Government websites
Content creation such
as memes

10. The dominance of
social media in the
21st century has made
the spread of
disinformation
effortless.

11. Why is disinformation
harmful to journalism?

12. It leads to mistrust of
professional media

13. Journalists themselves
become unwitting
amplifiers of it by
providing credibility to
it when covering it and
when the both-sides-
ism trap of objectivity
and balance

14. Why is disinformation
harmful to
democracy?

15. Without a common
set of facts on which
to debate, political
compromise becomes
impossible.

16. If one party believes a
fiction (i.e., Qanon),
then it will be
impossible to
participate in an adult
public discourse

17. Why is disinformation
harmful to people?

18. Because it kills
hundreds of
thousands of them.
Leads to acts of
political and personal
violence.

19. Hesiod’s “Theogony”
is the origin story of
the universe, and it
reveals the power of
disinformation.

20. The Muses,
inspirational
goddesses of the arts,
science and literature,
appeared to the poet
and state:

21. “We know how to tell
many false things
similar to the truth,
but we know how to
speak the truth when
we want to.”

22. In Shakespeare’s
“Othello,” the villain
Iago is a
disinformation
operator of the
highest order.

23. He manipulates his
target with “fake
news” to get him to
act according to his
design.

24. And what happens?
Othello smothers
Desdemona and dies
by suicide.
Shakespeare knew
that disinformation
was deadly.

25. Add the reality of the
First Amendment and
the modern
journalistic practice of
“bothsidesism” and at
least in the U.S.,
disinformation thrives.

26. Ironically, the First
amendment carries
with it the power to
destroy the
democracy it is
designed to support,
with the help of the
media.

27. We will study this
conflict and work
through solutions to
keep the media free
while disarming
disinformation.