Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator

ecause once you understand the limitations of the platform, the constraints can be used against the people who depend on it.

When you see “We’ve reached out to So-and-So for comment” know that they sent an e-mail two minutes before hitting “publish” at 4:00 A.M., long after they’d written the story and closed their mind, making absolutely no effort to get to the truth before passing it off to you as the news.

When you see an attributed quote or a “said So-and-So” know that the blogger didn’t actually talk to that person but probably just stole the quote from somewhere else, and per the rules of the link economy, they can claim it as their own so long as there is a tiny link to the original buried in the post somewhere.

When you see “which means” or “meaning that” or “will result in” or any other kind of interpretation or analysis know that the blogger who did it likely has absolutely zero training or expertise in the field they are opining about. Nor did they have the time or motivation to learn. Nor do they mind being wildly, wildly off the mark, because there aren’t any consequences.

When you hear a friend say in conversation “I was reading that …” know that today the sad fact is that they probably just glanced at something on a blog.

When you see “We’re hearing reports” know that reports could mean anything from random mentions on Twitter to message board posts, or worse.

When you see “leaked” or “official documents” know that the leak really meant someone just e-mailed a blogger, and that the documents are almost certainly not official and are usually fake or fabricated for the purpose of making desired information public.

When you see “BREAKING” or “We’ll have more details as the story develops” know that what you’re reading reached you too soon. There was no wait and see, no attempt at confirmation, no internal debate over whether the importance of the story necessitated abandoning caution. The protocol is going to press early, publishing before the basics facts are confirmed, and not caring whether it causes problem for people.

When you see “Updated” on a story or article know that no one actually bothered to rework the story in light of the new facts—they just copied and pasted some shit at the bottom of the article.

When you see “Sources tell us …” know that these sources are not vetted, they are rarely corroborated, and they are desperate for attention.

When you see a story tagged with “EXCLUSIVE” know that it means the blog and the source worked out an arrangement that included favorable coverage. Know that in many cases the source gave this exclusive to multiple sites at the same time or that the site is just taking ownership of a story they stole from a lesser-known site.

When you see “said in a press release” know that it probably wasn’t even actually a release the company paid to officially put out over the wire. They just spammed a bunch of blogs and journalists via e-mail.

When you see “According to a report by” know that the writer summarizing this report from another outlet has but the basest abilities in reading comprehension, little time to spend doing it, and every incentive to simplify and exaggerate.

media and the public are supposed to be on the same side. The media, when it’s functioning properly, protects the public against marketers and their ceaseless attempts to trick people into buying things.

the same logic behind the old trick of getting a music video or a commercial banned in order to make it a news story. As in MTV.com reporting “Rihanna’s ‘S&M’ Video Restricted By YouTube, Banned In 11 Countries.” MTV doesn’t play music videos anymore, but they’re still getting attention by writing about the stunts pulled by people who do! Do you think PETA is upset when their proposed Super Bowl commercial is rejected every year? No, that’s the entire point. They get the attention—and they don’t have to pay for the ad space.

Think of Wikipedia, which provides a good example of the iterative process. By 2010 the article on the Iraq War had accumulated more than twelve thousand edits. Enough to fill twelve volumes and seven thousand printed pages (someone actually did the math on this for an artistic book project). Impressive, no doubt. But that number obscures the fact that though the twelve thousand changes collectively result in a coherent, mostly accurate depiction, it is not what most people who looked at the Wikipedia entry in the last half decade saw. Most of them did not consume it as a final product. No, it was read, and relied upon, in piecemeal—while it was under construction. Thousands of other Wikipedia pages link to it; thousands more blogs used it as a reference; hundreds of thousands of people read these links and formed opinions accordingly. Each corrected mistake, each change or addition, in this light is not a triumph but a failure. Because for a time it was wrongly presented as being correct or complete—even though it was in a constant state of flux.

The reality is that while the Internet allows content to be written iteratively, the audience does not read or consume it iteratively. Each member usually sees what he or she sees a single time—a snapshot of the process—and makes his or her conclusions from that.

Today, even a company with little interest in self-promotion must hire one, simply to make sure people don’t say untrue things about their company. If it was once about spreading the word, now it’s as much about stopping the spread of inaccurate and damaging words.

few years back a young Irish student posted a fake quotation on the Wikipedia page of composer Maurice Jarre shortly after the man died. (The obituary-friendly quote said in part, “When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head that only I can hear.”) At the time, I’m not sure the student understood the convergence of the link economy and the delegation of trust. That changed in an instant, when his fabricated quote began to appear in obituaries for the composer around the world.

It’s difficult to pinpoint where it started, but at some point, a reporter or a blogger saw that quotation and used it in an article. Eventually the quote found its way to The Guardian, and from there it may as well have been real. The quote so perfectly expressed what writers wished to say about Jarre, and the fact that it was in The Guardian, a reputable and prominent newspaper, made it the source of many links. And so it went along the chain, its origins obscured, and the more times it was repeated, the more real it felt.

This is where the link economy fails in practice. Wikipedia editors may have caught and quickly removed the student’s edit, but that didn’t automatically update the obituaries that had incorporated it. Wikipedia administrators are not able to edit stories on other people’s websites so the quote remained in The Guardian until they caught and corrected it too. The link economy is designed to confirm and support, not to question or correct. In fact, the stunt was only discovered after the student admitted what he’d done.

“I am 100 percent convinced that if I hadn’t come forward, that quote would have gone down in history as something Maurice Jarre said, instead of something I made up,” he said. “It would have become another example where, once anything is printed enough times in the media without challenge, it becomes fact.”3

media outlets grapple with tighter deadlines and smaller staffs, many of the old standards for verification, confirmation, and fact-checking are becoming impossible to maintain. Every blog has its own editorial policy, but few disclose it to readers. The material one site pulls from another can hardly be trusted when it’s just as likely to have been written with low standards as with high ones.

not impressed anymore. I am depressed. Because the corrupt system I helped build is no longer in anyone’s control. The manipulators are indistinguishable from the publishers and bloggers—the people we were supposed to be manipulating. Everyone is now a victim, including me and the companies I work for. And the costs are incredibly high.