By Kaitlyn Clark
Co-publisher, The Haldimand Press
As a millenial – try not to judge me too harshly for that fact – I’ve been a Facebook user since my early teens. It’s been a great resource for me in that time. From keeping up with my family in British Columbia and Newfoundland, to staying connected with university friends after graduation across the globe, to watching funny videos and reading interesting stories from the pages I follow, Facebook has been enteraining and informative.
The thing is, as useful as Facebook can be, the number of pitfalls are as common as quicksand in 80s movies. Misinformation abounds despite the company’s efforts to reign it in. No topic is safe from an individual’s misunderstood post or even a joke going viral and being taken as fact by thousands who view it. In my years on the social media platform I’ve had to step in a few times to gently guide a friend or relative out of the misinformation quicksand.
Once a friend shared a post with a cut open, reddish banana that included a warning in all caps to beware your grocery store’s produce! It recounted a tale of a mother cutting the banana to feed her young child, only to find it filled with blood. It asserted with absolute certainty that this was someone with AIDS withdrawing their blood and inserting it into unsuspecting produce to pass the disease on to unsuspecting shoppers – and thank goodness this mother happened to cut her bananas first! Of course, this post was a giant steaming pile of you-know-what. The image was a banana with some kind of mold if I remember correctly, and then even if some dastardly person really was running around contaminating bananas with their blood, HIV (the virus that causes AIDS) dies outside the body.
Another post warned people to never, ever use your windsheild wipers if someone throws an egg at your car. The washer fluid, it asserted, would mix with the egg and create a substance so thick you’re unable to see through it and unable to wash it away – forcing you to pull over and making you vulnerable to these scientifically inclined carjackers.
And even on the posts where everything is accurate, the comments usually have the quickest sand yet – people with clearly wrong information argue they know better, and in cases when the answer is less black-and-white they still argue as if it was. Facebook “debates” take a win-or-be-killed attitude as the two sides battle for dominance over all else.
In all of these cases, as people seek to scare or win over others, the truth is lost.
I’ve written about this before, but with National Newspaper Week here again it’s a great time to toot our own horn and talk about the importance of newspapers as “Champions of the Truth.” As the saying goes, there are three sides to every story – his, hers, and the truth.
The Haldimand Press always aims to present unbiased information. We gather the facts and talk to the people on those different sides, ensuring our readers can make an informed decision on the matter. As a newspaper, we have no interest in one side or the other winning. Our job isn’t to advocate for an opinion, it’s to inform people of what’s happening out there.
I know we’re doing a pretty decent job at it. How? Because we’ve been told we’re too Conservative – and too Liberal. Because we’ve been told we clearly favour the other side of an article – from both sides. Because we’ve had someone demand to know how we could possibly print such-and-such statement – and then had someone thank us for it.
The fact is, the truth doesn’t care. It doesn’t care how you feel about it, if it aligns with your personal desires or goals. It just is. It can be hard to unravel at times, but it’s still there, unaffected by our lives outside it.
We hope you will read our pages with an open mind to consider all three sides.
