Read Before Retweeting - Think!

I had on the news yesterday and one of the shows was once again bringing up the idea we have seen in the media of "Fake News." This particular reporter was going on an on about how this started heavily two years ago and question what has been done to fix this. I found it interesting that the reports were all talking about how I.T. companies such as Facebook and Twitter were putting together huge teams to identify and hopefully stop this information from making it to the public.

But is this the real issue? I would argue no. And please, do not worry if you are thinking I am now going to go all political on you and not talk about publishing. I will get there.

Are there operatives out there spreading this news? Yes. We now know that this was a huge issue during the last election. But the real issue is not so much the fact that we have this group of people spreading this news. The issue is that the people are A) reading it; B) believing it; and C) spreading it around. We have become a population of people who do not think!

I am reminded about a group known as the Society of Creative Anachronism, the SCA. This is a group of people who go out on weekends and attempt to relive the middle ages (or around that time). What I always found interesting is that these people will talk about their knowledge of this time period from their "extensive research." They talk as if they are double Ph.D. scholars in history. The reality is that many just got their research from each other, or those quick "Google Searches" which inevitably landed them on Wikipedia. 

In other words, these people were not specialists, but people believed them.

So, what does this have to do with publishing. This is something I have talked about for some time. In publishing, we are constantly being told about things happening in the publishing world. Issues of reasons why publishers are doing one thing and not another. We hear about what agents are doing. We hear about contract situations. Now, while there are certainly cases where some of this is happening, the reality of the situation is that by the time it gets to you, the information is often taken out of context, or the information has been tweaked so much, that it is not likely accurate anymore.

We also see this by the "specialists" writers go to in an attempt to learn about how to be published, or to write a better book. Because someone posted it on a blog, or gave a workshop, and are given the title of being a specialist, people just flock to this person as if 200% of what they are saying is the gospel truth. Not always the case.

Every day, I see authors spreading "the latest news" on things in publishing on social media who probably have not really done their research or even thought it through. They saw a blog post, read a link in a Twitter or Instagram feed and simply forwarded it on because it came from someone they trusted. They did not think.

Are these people out there intentionally deceiving writers? I would argue no. They do believe they know what they are talking about. They do believe they know the truth. But as those listening to the information, it is our responsibility to do our own research. It is our responsibility to THINK!

Your homework this week it to start thinking again. Read before you retweet. Use that lumpy mass in between your ears for something more than binge watching the latest episode of Poldark or Stranger Things.