Fake news | Information literacy

Fake news. You’ve heard about it, consumed it, probably even believed it — at least on occasion. And if, like 92 percent of American adults, you’re on Facebook or Twitter, you’ve quite possibly helped pass it along.* But what is it? Why does it exist? How do we combat it and why can’t it just go away? USC Times invited to lunch two faculty members — David Lankes, director of the School of Library and Information Science, and Ernest Wiggins, associate professor in the School of Journalism — and alumnus Taylor Smith, a journalism and law school grad who serves as the attorney for the South Carolina Press Association. We asked our esteemed panel to discuss this most vexing of 21st century media problems — the rampant spread of fake news, clickbait profiteering and outright propaganda.

So let’s start at the beginning. What is “fake news”?

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