Information is a double-edged sword in journalism – a tool that can reveal or hide truths, depending on who wields it. In a time where the line between fact and fiction is increasingly blurred, stories that challenge already established narratives usually find themselves in the crosshairs, but where do we draw the line between storytelling and propaganda? When does journalistic integrity become a victim of bias, and who decides which voices are heard and which are silenced?

To budding journalists, teaching journalistic integrity in an age where “clickbait” and over-fabrication often drive viewership is essential. It’s easy to get swept up in the chase for clicks, where a student’s desire for readers could overshadow the facts of the story. “In Intro to Journalism, we spend some time looking at media bias. So we look at bias across the mainstream media as a whole and the ways that that plays out, but then underneath that is the bias of individual journalists,” journalism teacher Evva Starr said.

Ensuring bias stays out of a journalistic space has to be a priority from day one. There might be cases where a news outlet has a clear lean, like Fox News, where 93% of readers lean right, or MSNBC, where 95% lean left, as reported by Elizabeth Grieco for Pew Research in a 2020 report. These sites must be held accountable, but it’s still up to the individual reader to be cautious of what media they’re taking in.

Especially when starting, every journalist should try their best to stay unbiased, allowing room for facts and clarity to take the lead. It’s no different for students in their first semester of journalism. “We do some exercises on identifying our own biases, which are just beliefs, which we’re all full of. We have to look at those beliefs and how they might conflict with stories we need to cover and how we would counteract that. A journalist wouldn’t take a story if there’s a bias that would keep us from covering something accurately or fairly,” Starr said.

We see it all the time with mainstream papers: A big, flashy headline or a dramatic photo – anything to get someone to stop scrolling just for a second. But here’s the thing: Journalism isn’t supposed to be a game of shock value or who can do better than the next person with a bigger story.

Journalists should be digging deep and asking the tough questions and that means that sometimes you have to tell a story that isn’t flashy but is still important. Finding a balance between grabbing attention and staying true to facts is tougher than ever with wars, important decisions and today’s algorithm-driven news cycling around in the bubble. If we let the truth get swallowed up by all of the noise, what’s the point of the story? “Journalists tell the story as they see it in the moment, and I think it’s very admirable that they put their thoughts out there as they are experiencing it,” history teacher Anne-Marie Steppling said.

In the age of TikTok scrolls and viral tweets, citizen journalism has become a source of news for a generation raised on easy information at their fingertips. Citizen journalism is the idea that anyone – regardless of their background or education – can participate in acts of reporting. For teens, this means gathering info on everything from pop culture to politics through social media. This undeniably gives the potential for diverse voices and perspectives, but students say the risks are too big. “When you’re a citizen journalist, you’re not held to the same standards as a media company. Media companies have to post the facts because there’s more weight on them to be factual. Nothing happens to citizen journalists when they spread misinformation so they’re more likely to do it,” sophomore Mahdi Akbarin said.

Unlike well-known and trusted media outlets that are bound by codes of ethics and heavy fact-checking, the average TikTok user isn’t held to the same standard, and that lack of accountability seems to open the door for misinformation to spread like wildfire. You might read a viral thread on climate change or get a hot take on the election, but who’s fact-checking these sources other than the creators themselves? With citizen journalism, ‘the truth’ becomes a slippery concept and feels controlled by virality rather than accuracy. “I think [citizen journalism] helps get people’s attention, but then I would want to encourage my students to do a deep dive into comparing that to what the historians and scholars have written on the past who have taken the time to really dig through the dirt and tell the nitty-gritty parts of the story,” Steppling said.

Multiple apps have tried their best to stop the sharing of false information with alerts somewhere on the screen or warnings with fact checkers behind them. X (at the time Twitter) launched a community notes feature in 2021, later being popularized in March of 2022 over misinformation on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Although its goal is to counter propaganda and misinformation, it seems to be impossible to avoid it 100% as there are nearly 140,000 users of the app who can add community notes compared to the much smaller ratio of fact-checkers. This increases the chances of notes including biased false information to trick other users. “Fact-checking is so important and in mainstream media job cutbacks in the last two decades, fact-checkers have been some of the first people to go, and it’s tragic. If you look at social media platforms like X, I read that they only employ 30 fact checkers across their whole platform, which is unbelievably shameful,” Starr said.

AI poses a threat in the 21st-century world of misinformation. Platforms like ChatGPT comb through the internet, pulling pieces together to give you your answer. As AI evolves – with new models that can even cite their sources – it’s getting easier to turn to them when you’re stuck on a question or just need a quick answer.

But then, of course, there is a darker side. AI bots have found ways to make fake photos that could ruin someone’s reputation in an instant. Last year, actors had to go on strike in an effort to fight back against their faces being deepfaked onto random bodies without any compensation. It’s almost too on the nose of a Black Mirror episode. The scariest part? It’s not science fiction anymore: it’s happening.

At the end of the day, the only way to fight misinformation is with the truth. Journalism, be it professionals or everyday people, should always make an effort to shine a light on facts and not twist them. Although it’s tempting to chase the drama, truth is what keeps stories grounded. Journalists — new or experienced — have a responsibility to dig deeper, stay curious and push past the noise. Whether you’re scrolling through TikTok, reading headlines or reporting for your own school paper, the facts always matter more than the flash.