Can increased readership reduce our attention to fake news?

As I was scrolling my feed on my Instagram account on my way to the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, I came across a couple of posts promoting fake news. My main approach to cover this event was to promote readership among younger generations but this situation changed my perspective completely. I started to wonder: can readership help us to distinguish between fake and real news?

Constant innovation it’s part of our country’s DNA which has benefited us in technology and transformed our economy. The internet has democratized access to creation and distribution tools, in others words, nowadays we all get to have a voice online.

This is great in some ways I mean; I wouldn’t be writing a blog post for an established publication if this hadn’t happened. What it’s not so great it’s that since it’s open to the public, certainly everyone has the chance to write and publish whatever they want because this sphere it’s no longer regulated.

Our primary outlets for communication these days are through apps. Although they are a valuable tool, there are a lot of users who make a living creating fake news If fake news. If this keeps spreading faster than facts, people could be making important decisions based on the wrong information.

In my opinion, if we promote readership be it in digital or print format, this problem could be potentially solved. Or perhaps it’s not just a problem related to readership but also about trusting reliable sources. I would even propose to take our trust back to established publications to double check published facts.

Festival of Books was a great reminder to me and to our group of digital content creators to reflect about how to bring ethics and professionalism back to the world of content publishing. I’d like to thank the network of Latinas Who Hustle for the opportunity to express my opinion in such a wonderful publication such as Los Angeles Times en Español.

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