Speaker 1: When I was in high school, I was in love with this guy named Stephen. He was tall, dark, handsome. He looked like Wesley Snipes had a baby with a chocolate cake. Now he asked me to homecoming in my computer science class. And at that point in my life, if you said bless you, I was ready to pick out bridesmaids and a wedding registry. Now I fell head over heels for him, but I don't think he felt the same about me, especially when he ditched me at homecoming and started making out with a random girl. But he said he liked me, you know? He would buy me snacks at lunch and take me home from school, and he always said hi to me in the hallway. That's what love is, isn't it? Well, it was Valentine's Day, and I hadn't spoken to him in three days, so I had started to separate myself from Steve Jr. and our house in the country. But then, there he was. He walked into the middle of my chemistry class with a box of chocolates and a little teddy bear holding a heart that said, I love you. And immediately, everyone said, oh my gosh, he's so romantic. That's so sweet. And I was like, I know. We're so happy. We're so in love. At least, I thought. I go to third period, and I see three girls with identical chocolate boxes and teddy bears holding little hearts that say, I love you. And a friend pulled me aside and said, Steve got you a gift, too. See what I had perceived as a declaration of love was really just a guy being nice to me and three other girls in my grade. See, I was wrong about Steve, but that wasn't the first time or the last time I've kind of become acquainted with being wrong. I'm a reporter for the Plano Star Courier, so I cover everything from breaking news, city council, school board, anything in the community. And my job is to get it right, names, dates, people's faces, people's quotes. And my work is more important than ever, because what I write helps shape people's perspective of their community. With a single headline, I can make or break a resident's belief in their city council, their school board, their neighborhood, or the fundamental reason they moved to a community. Now we're living in a time with a lot of mistrust in the media. Alternative facts and fake news are casually thrown around, and we saw a ton of it during the recent election cycle, so much so that Stanford and NYU did a study on social media and fake news in the 2016 election. Now we saw headlines like Trump says if black lives don't matter here, go back to Africa, or even tens of thousands of fraudulent Clinton votes found in Ohio warehouse, which just between us, like, these are terrible headlines, like, they're trash. People still believed them and shared them millions of times, particularly on Facebook. Now officials came out and said there are no votes found, this is absolutely incorrect. You know, different representatives from each camp said none of this that he said or she said was true. But from the study, they found that people saw and remembered 92% of pro-Trump stories and 23% of pro-Clinton stories. So what does that tell us? Mainly, that people may have doubted the truth in these stories, but they still believed they were possible. So yeah, maybe Trump didn't say those exact words, but he's still a bigot. Or no, Clinton probably didn't have those votes, but she's still untrustworthy. And that's the thing, we're creating perspectives based on nothing but lies. And that's kind of how we're starting to use news. We're using media to reinforce our personal biases instead of adjusting our beliefs to fit the evidence in front of us. So what is our savior? How do we stop the spread of fake news? How do we stay grounded in reality instead of a world that we make up in our heads? I think the first step is self-reflection. It's everyone taking a step back and asking themselves, what if I am the problem? What if I am out of line? What if I am wrong? Now the way that we share news is incredibly rapid pace. There is no gatekeeper. So essentially everyone is their own gatekeeper. And especially when there's mistrust in the media, it's very common for people to turn inwards and to start to only rely on sources they've always trusted. So those news stations they've always believed, friends, relatives, people they know, love, and trust with similar backgrounds and similar beliefs. And it goes far beyond media. How many of us don't even go to a restaurant unless it has at least four stars on Yelp? Or we don't read a book or watch a movie or even binge a show on Netflix unless someone says you've just got to watch this. It's so easy for us to share news with a simple click of a button. We can share good news, bad news, messy news. And when we were kids, we were always told sharing is caring. But how much care do we put behind the things that we share? Growing up, my parents were a bit of over sharers. They were always talking to us about the real. I remember being sat down as a child and my parents telling me, Kelsey, you will always have to work twice as hard to be considered just as good. Now I didn't believe them. I'm like, we live in the suburbs, we have a two story house. I just figured that was something old black people told their kids. And my parents never shied away from telling us the truth. American history and black history, even outside of February, we learned about slavery and lynchings and Selma and the march on Washington. And yet, a part of me still felt like racism couldn't really touch me. So flash forward, I'm a sophomore in college and we're discussing the latest news story out of Florida. A little boy has been killed by a neighborhood watchman. It's the first time I've ever heard Trayvon Martin's name or anything about a stand your ground law. And as we're discussing the incident and the context surrounding the case, I immediately think this doesn't feel right. Something is wrong. This cannot be real. And as soon as class is over, I do what everyone else does. I hop on social media to see who else is talking about this. And there is nothing on my Facebook, nothing on my Twitter, not even my favorite YouTubers are talking about this. And I'm heated because I'm like, this is a huge story. This is such a tragedy. Why is no one discussing this? But then it dawned on me. I had created a social media experience where racism and injustice didn't exist. I cherry picked the friends I followed, the conversations on my timeline to exclude anything negative or real. And when I was confronted with the reality that we didn't live in a post-racial society and that racism was still alive and well and that the world was not okay because Barry O was president, I felt like I was living a lie. But even worse, I just wished someone would have told me, someone would have pulled me to the side and said, Kelsey, what you're thinking is wrong and you need to get right. That's not the way. This is the way. But I had to realize someone did try to help me. My parents, who talked to me about slavery and lynchings and Selma and the march on Washington. See my problem was that I didn't think I had anything else to learn. American history, I passed that class with an A and I thought I was done learning about the world around me. And that's just not true. Maybe today I can fight a lot of those urges because as a reporter, I get a ton of practice. I'm constantly asking myself, what if you're wrong? It keeps me grounded. It keeps me looking for every perspective to a story, every perspective to the truth, not just the ones that suit my fancy. So what can we do? What can we do to stay truthful and stay real? I think it starts with self-reflection. I think it starts with everyone taking an introspective look at their beliefs, questioning and asking themselves, are my beliefs a reflection of the reality in front of me? Or are they just stale memories from middle school? Now maybe being wrong doesn't have to be something dramatic like it was for me. It could be something simple like there has to be different perspectives to this situation. Or even just admitting the situation isn't as simple as I think it is. It helps us make sure that our beliefs are a true reflection of the reality that we're living in. And it's worth it. It's worth it to switch up where we get our news. You know, and be more discerning with the news that we absorb. So like, if you get that story from realhiphopnews.com, like, Google it real quick before you share it. Like, read the headline and the lead and the rest of it before you talk about it. I'm sure if the story has only us or says, it's probably not real news. And you guys don't have to share that messy story that you see online. The buck can stop with you. We are our loved one's gatekeepers. We shouldn't lead them astray. It's also worth it to diversify where we get our news. So if you guys always watch Fox News, try MSNBC or try both. Try lots of perspectives to a story before you create an opinion. It's also worth it to try and get your news from someone who doesn't look like you. I haven't always had the privilege to absorb news from someone who looks like me. But I can tell you, it adds a completely different perspective to a lot of stories we consistently see. It helps broaden the base of your understanding. There are tons of reporters of color who are doing incredible work, and you should check them out. There's people like Van Newkirk II at The Atlantic or Francesca Ramsey on MTV Decoded. There's podcasts like Another Round with Heben and Tracy, even YouTube channels like Flama or Wong Fu Productions. By diversifying my news space, I am more than confident that my beliefs are a reflection of the reality that I'm living in. I have been challenged and stretched and forced to bend, and I am better for it. When I was younger in church, Brother Reed, our youth director, he would always tell us, you don't change the Bible to fit your life. You change your life to fit the Bible. And I think the same can be said for the truth. And it's not easy work. If it was easy, everyone would do it. But it's worthwhile work, and it starts with you. It starts with me. It starts with us. Thank you.