In a world increasingly dominated by artificial intelligence and social media, the line between fact and fiction has never been more blurred. According to Ren\u00e9e DiResta, an associate research professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, digital manipulation and disinformation are fundamentally reshaping how the public consumes information and whom they trust.<\/p>\n
“We’ve made it easier,” DiResta explains, describing how both foreign actors and domestic influencers are flooding the information ecosystem with questionable content. The impact on traditional journalism has been severe, with public trust in media reaching historic lows.<\/p>\n
Recent Gallup polling shows just 28 percent of Americans have “a great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in newspapers, television, and radio to report news fully, accurately, and fairly\u2014down from 31 percent last year and 40 percent five years ago. Among Republicans, confidence has plummeted to a mere 8 percent.<\/p>\n
The erosion of trust didn’t happen overnight. DiResta points to several key developments that have transformed the media landscape, including the rise of partisan outlets like Fox News that market themselves as truth-tellers while portraying other media as untrustworthy. “The marketing of one outlet as trustworthy and all of the other outlets as non-trustworthy has been something that has been a marketing differentiator in the conservative media sphere for some time now,” she notes.<\/p>\n
This phenomenon has intensified with the emergence of social media influencers\u2014content creators who monetize their content across platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and X (formerly Twitter). Unlike traditional journalists, these influencers often position themselves as authentic alternatives to “corporate” media.<\/p>\n
“They don’t even position themselves as media but as opposition in some ways to media,” DiResta explains. “They’re just talking to you as themselves\u2014a voice that is entirely not media, somebody speaking to you as somebody who is just like you.”<\/p>\n
The monetization structures behind these influencers often remain opaque to their audiences. While the Federal Trade Commission requires disclosure when influencers are compensated for promoting products, similar transparency rules don’t necessarily apply to political content. According to DiResta, this creates situations where political influencers share content with “affiliate links” without disclosing their financial incentives.<\/p>\n
Beyond influencer culture, three recent developments have made the situation particularly challenging for journalists: the emergence of increasingly sophisticated AI-generated synthetic content, the dismantling of platform governance and fact-checking systems, and the portrayal of fact-checking itself as censorship.<\/p>\n
The rapid advancement of AI tools like OpenAI’s Sora has made detecting fake content increasingly difficult. “It makes it easier to deny the real, which I think is something that people don’t pay as much attention to, and they should. And then two, it makes it easier to believe the fake,” DiResta notes.<\/p>\n
While there have been attempts to implement safeguards like digital watermarking, these solutions remain imperfect. “It doesn’t work as well as people want it to. That’s the honest answer,” DiResta acknowledges. The challenge is further complicated by the fact that open-source AI models may never incorporate such protections.<\/p>\n
The situation has been exacerbated by what DiResta describes as the “dismantling of state capacity” to combat foreign influence operations. Under the current administration, government entities tasked with detecting and mitigating foreign disinformation have been scaled back or eliminated entirely, often based on what DiResta calls “transparently BS political reasons.”<\/p>\n
“The Foreign Influence Task Force, certain aspects of work that the FBI did, the Foreign Malign Influence Center at ODNI… we dismantle the state capacity. And ultimately, what we do is we open the door for Russia, China, and Iran to continue to run influence campaigns without anybody in the government being tasked to look at them,” she explains.<\/p>\n
Academic institutions that previously studied these issues have also faced defunding, creating a perfect storm where sophisticated state actors encounter fewer obstacles to spreading disinformation.<\/p>\n
Despite this grim picture, DiResta sees potential for traditional journalism to reassert its value. As distinguishing real from fake becomes increasingly difficult, media outlets with established verification processes and on-the-ground reporting may experience renewed appreciation.<\/p>\n
“This is one of the theories of the future,” she says, “that you will see increased trust return to mainstream media in these moments of trying to determine if a video or image is real.” News organizations that can establish clear provenance for their reporting\u2014transparently showing where information comes from and how it was verified\u2014may find this becomes a crucial differentiator in a landscape cluttered with questionable content.<\/p>\n
For local journalists covering these issues, DiResta recommends focusing on relatable stories rather than abstract warnings. “Helping people understand the most common scams, right? The most common ways that this manifests… using storytelling to help inform the public.”<\/p>\n
In a media environment where trust has become a scarce commodity, establishing credibility through transparency, verification, and human connection may be the path forward for journalism in the AI age.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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