Defining Misinformation and Disinformation and Their Impact

Some people like to say that information is power. While that may seem like a cliche, it is a loaded statement. Information triggers judgements from those who process what is in front of them, and part of that judgement entails whether or not they believe the information.

The audience likes to believe things. If an article states something in a factual manner, than the reader may associate the statement with being an indisputable fact. This is dangerous, as just because something looks factual doesn’t mean that it is, and the internet does not only cater to the truth.

“Fake News” is a term that has grown in popularity within recent years, and is mostly looked at in a anger-inducing light. While fake news in a huge problem, the term is too broad for it’s own good. A better way to define fake news is by labeling news as either misinformation or disinformation.

Misinformation is news that is false but may not have been meant to intentionally mislead while disinformation is news that is intentionally meant to mislead. This difference defines the malicious aspects of fake news, as misinformation could be an honest mistake while disinformation is always intentional.

A tweet from President Trump calling out fake news. Trump has recently come under fire himself for tweeting out not factual information and had several tweets censored. (NurPhoto—NurPhoto/Getty Images)

Now that we have the definitions out of the way, it is important to discuss how to combat it. In many regards, this responsibility revolves around social networking websites. Most respected websites are able to decipher fake news from real news, and thus the misinformation does not reach the masses. Those who spread disinformation tend to gain their traction through social media. Recently, these sites, namely Twitter, have made strides to eliminating disinformation, mostly through censorship. Articles and other information deemed to be “not factual” has either been withheld from Twitter or simply just giving a warning label.

This is a step in the right direction, and increasing this practice is vital. The current threat that people will flock to websites that do not censor factually inaccurate information is lacking necessary depth since actively searching for fake news will not gain them credibility. In other words, this is a non-starter.

An angry Facebook user calling out an article they probably found on the social media network. (Thomas Trutschel/Getty)

While the social media sites are attempting to make amends for these issues, do they deserve blame for the relevancy of fake news? Yes and no. They provided a forum that allows for mis- and disinformation to be spread, but the websites were not designed to be news outlets. They were designed to allow for their users to express themselves and share thoughts with each other. If someone decides to take something they see on social media as 100 percent factual without any other research, then that is more a measure of their own character and carelessness than the websites responsibility.

So how do we, as users combat the issue of fake news? We need to portray strong character and make judgements based on research and not just speculation. For journalists, this means research and preparedness, and for users this means developing the ability to scrutinize and promoting critical thinking.

Can the National Hockey League Make it on an Outdoor Arena?

The National Hockey League will be operating very differently next season. Normally the league would begin to play games in late October and would finish their playoffs around June. Instead, last season ended in September and the next one is expected to begin in mid-January. The 52-56 game season would be, as said by commissioner Gary Bettman, “fluid”.

What exactly does this mean? Well, the league is planning to adapt to whatever opportunities and guidelines are presented to them. They will have as many fans in attendance as they are allowed, and this is definitely something that can determine the future health of the league.

Unlike the National Football League, the NHL is heavily reliant upon gate revenue. The NFL makes so much money from their national television contracts and the NHL simply do not have the same deals, and additionally have much more gate revenue as a result of having about five times as many contests per team each season.

Currently, the NFL is able to have fans at select games and as of right now the NHL having fans in attendance at their home venues looks to be dire. This could result in financial hardships for the latter league, which in turn could send several teams out of business and weaken the stability of the league. The difference between the two leagues is that one plays outside and one plays inside. During the pandemic, people have been notably more willing to participate in outdoor socially distanced activities. Attending a half-filled football stadium while being adequately separated from other patrons has proved to be something that could be considered safe.

The NHL may be jumping on this train. Four teams, the Boston Bruins, Los Angeles Kings, Anaheim Ducks and Pittsburgh Penguins have all asked the league to consider letting them use outdoor venues regularly and in turn have fan attendance. Additionally, the Nashville Predators, Dallas Stars and Carolina Hurricanes are considering looking into the idea of hosting outdoor regular season games.

This seems perfect in theory, but some problems do arise. One clear issue is simply feasibility. The Winter Classic is an annual outdoor game that occurs on January 1st each year, except 2021 of course, and the quality of the ice is always a concern. This is all just to prepare for one game, so it may be difficult to build a sustainable rink that can withstand multiple contests.

An aerial view of the 2016 Winter Classic, hosted by Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, MA. (NHL.com)

Secondly it will be expensive. The Winter Classic has always been an expensive event to pull off, and it only makes a profit because it is a nationally televised game on a holiday that is up there for most viewed regular season sporting contests each year. The other outdoor games each year do not get the same buzz as the Classic, but still do well due to the novelty of playing a game outdoors. If the outdoor games become routine, especially with only limited fans in the stands, the profit could easily turn into a loss, which would be counterproductive for the league.

Pregame of the 2020 Winter Classic, with limited fans in the stands. (Getty Images)

Thirdly, it could ruin The Winter Classic. The game is entertaining for fans and brings certain cities alive each winter. If outdoor games lose their luster, the NHL loses an opportunity to attract fans who only tune into the game for the spectacle, and this easily could happen if outdoor games are overexploited this season.

Lastly, it may not be safe. The Bruins, Kings, Ducks and Penguins are all located in states where the NFL teams haven’t even had spectators, and the infrastructure for this is not currently built. The season is hopefully about a month and a half away, and the team’s are all looking at venues that have not hosted events during the pandemic. This, along with the NFL’s struggles with containing the virus within their league presents the possibility that it may not be safe to have fans roaming around the concourses.

The idea may not be perfect, but it is very proactive. The NHL is using the sport’s relation to the cold to it’s advantage, and is trying to make it work. It is a very interesting situation and will also be something fun to pay attention to over the next several weeks.

Ivy League Cancels, Cornell Hockey Programs Lose Out

On Friday, November 13, 2020, the Wisconsin Badgers faced the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in a mens collegiate ice hockey game. This was a remarkable moment for college hockey fans all over the country, and inserts an opportunity for the sport to gain a mainstream presence on sports fans, especially those enamored with professional hockey, who will not have their fix until at least early 2021.

Unfortunately, the Ivy League will not be a part of the spectacle. The coalition of prestigious colleges cancelled all winter sports competition, thus ending any participation for these teams, despite the Ivy League not even having a hockey conference.

The Ivy League teams that sponsor a hockey team participate in the Eastern College Athletic Conference, and the league has claimed to expect a 2020-21 winter season for the schools who choose to participate. The league will survive without the Ivy League teams, as they still retain seven of their 13 conference members, but the prestige will definitely be affected.

Cornell University will be a massive loss for the league, as both the men’s and women’s programs have been the class of the conference in recent memory. The mens team finished 23-2-4 last season, and were ranked No. 1 in the country when the season was suspended. Despite losing some talent, the Big Red were still expected to compete for a national title, and were ranked as high as No. 6 in the country according to pre-season polls.

The women’s team finished 28-2-3, good for No.1 in the country, and were ranked No.2 in the preseason polls for this season.

Arguably the two best teams across the NCAA are done for the season, and whether this decision is correct or not is frankly irrelevant in this particular blog post. Other teams will be participating this season, and if they are successful, recruiting athletes to Ivy League schools will become even more of a challenge than it already is.

Players will head to other schools, especially if they are exempted from the one-year transfer penalty as a result of Covid-19, and others will seek opportunities at the Juniors level or even professional levels. Even the ones that stay will be frustrated at their school, as they will feel like they have been screwed out of an opportunity.

While the reality stinks, it is what the schools decided, and they must live with any consequences it may have, regardless of whether the season finishes or not. Regardless, if you know any Ivy League winter athlete, send some sympathy to them.

How Will Sports and Recreation be Affected by the Second Wave?

In March of 2020, the sports world stopped and it has still not fully assimilated back. This is especially true for the pre-professional, amateur levels, as they have been either cancelled or significantly changed.

Most states, including New York State, have limited what activities have been allowed to participate and which must be played at a later date. On a state-wide basis, the New York State Public High School Athletic Association postponed sports dedicated as high-risk to a modified season starting in March. Some sports included in this are Football, Volleyball and Competitive Cheer.

While those sports were delayed, sports like soccer and cross country were dedicated low risk, and were allowed to have some form of a season.

This ruling applied to the state as a whole, but allowed for individual conferences to determine their own fates for the fall season and beyond. In the case of the Southern Tier Athletic Conference, which is home to Ithaca High School, all athletic competitions were postponed until 2021.

In addition to all of this, sports like wrestling, ice hockey, basketball and competitive cheerleading are in doubt to start on time during the winter season and indoor track and field may never get a chance this season. All of this is happening and in the background the pandemic is reaching a second wave and rumors of another shutdown are looming.

So, what is going to happen to sport and recreation? Here are some options

A Strange, Inconsistent Attempt to Allow to Play:

This seems like maybe the most likely option, especially for high schools. There is a noted desire to allow students to participate in the extracurricular activities they love so much. This, combined with parental pressure, will cause some sports to begin, and most likely lead to sports ending as well. School districts will take every precaution to keep their kids safe, and currently, some sports may be counterproductive to this issue. This may cause some sports to be given the green light and some stopped at the final outcome, or also one sport too have an issue and wreck it for every other participating sport. This would be considered a disaster, and may become a true reality.

A Focus on the Spring

This may be the best option. In the 2019-20 school year, fall sports participated in full, many winter sports finished or almost finished their seasons, and spring sports got screwed. This year, fall has been severely diminished, winter seems to be teetering on the edge of chaos, and spring sports haven’t been in focus yet. In the eyes of fairness, taking all measures to give spring athletes the best shot at a season seems like a good option. Focusing on this would allow time to pass, vaccines to be potentially developed, but perhaps most importantly, an effort can be made to thwart this disease without the added pressure of maintaining other sports, many of which taking place indoors.

End Athletics for 2020-21 School Year

This is the least appetizing option, but many may consider it the only option. If the second wave sends students back to fully remote learning, athletics will not occur. This could last through the full year, and therefore would eradicate athletics for the school year. Current seniors would miss their upperclassman years of athletics, while participants will grow weary of these activities and perhaps put efforts toward more sustainable ventures. This is a sad but very real option.

The pandemic stinks and has taken so much from many people, but the best way to bring high school athletics back is to social distance and wear a mask. Don’t do it for yourself, do it for a high school athlete, or any high schooler who loves an extracurricular activity. Do it for them.

The Legitimacy of Sports Championships During a Pandemic

The Tampa Bay Lightning have just recently won the Stanley Cup Championship, and the Los Angeles Lakers recently won the Larry O’Brien Trophy. Both teams battled through unfamiliar circumstances and came out on top. However, sports fans everywhere are questioning whether these championships should come with an asterisk. Why is this?

Twitter user Josiah Johnson sent a tweet that has sparked questioning to this exact point.

After sports returned in July, social media sites were again fluttered with sports commentary, and the NBA is no exception to this. The NBA dominated headlines, whether they be for the competition on the court or the action that was happening on the court while they were in their bubble in Orlando, Florida. However, the Los Angeles Lakers, who had the Western Conference’s best record in the regular season, were the ones who came out on top, and were led by Lebron James, perhaps the most dominant and polarizing player of this generation, as well as Anthony Davis, a megastar in his own right. Having players of this caliber on a team like the Los Angeles Lakers, who have a culture defined by both winning and toxicity, allows for most fans to absolutely despise the team. So when they win a championship in an unorthodox season, it causes people to dismiss and not even talk about it.

The Lightning have been a juggernaut for the past half decade, but never could get over the hump. Winning this year for them seemed relatively fitting, but also gives questions for legitimacy. The Lightning were able to grab the second seed in the playoffs despite not even winning their division. While this did not change their path too much, it gave them an edge over teams like the Boston Bruins, who won that division but did not perform well in the round robin series.

The circumstances helped both the Lightning and Lakers win their championship, but they also allowed for a deep playoff run for the MLB’s Houston Astros, a team that would be nowhere near a playoff spot in a normal year. Despite a 29–31 record, they qualified for the playoffs and were able to advance all the way to the American League Championship Series. While it is impressive, the fact that they only qualified for the playoffs as a result of these circumstances makes them an easy team to question.

Should these championships come with an asterisk? My answer is no. Even though the circumstances have been different, they may have made these champions even more clearly the most deserving teams. Rising to the occasion in these circumstances shows the grit a team needs to win a title, and using the circumstances to discredit them is the incorrect response.

The Future of Fans at Sporting Events

In March 2020, fans exited the stadiums for their respective teams without the knowledge that going to another sporting contest would be a pandemic away. However, some sports leagues have been able to assimilate fans, albeit at a reduced rate from the typical professional sports setting.

The National Football League was the first professional sports league to allow fans to attend games, and this was only in the case of certain teams. For the Kansas City Chiefs and the Jacksonville Jaguars, fans were let in from Week One, and so far those franchises have received little to no backlash. However, the large scale of outbreaks within the NFL provide concerns for attendees, as if the players who are given the top-tier care are still contracting Covid-19, where does that leave the fans?

As other teams begin to allow some fans in, it brings up potential controversy, One of the first steps of teams has been to allow fans personal to the team to attend. In some cases, this meant families of the players, in other instances it was seemingly random. This brings controversy to the forefront, and perhaps there is no better example than Hall of Fame Quarterback Brett Farve’s appearance at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers home contest Sept. 21st. The controversy was that Farve attended the contest while family of the players, namely Buccaneers Center Ryan Jensen, were not given access to the stadium.

Farve attended the game as an employee for NFL Films, and the organization was doing a feature on Buccaneers safety Devin White. While this is the legal reasoning for Farve’s attendance, it does not explain his conduct. His outfit and behavior associate him with the likeness of a fan, and not an employee. If this behavior was present at a Green Bay Packers game, the team Farve to the NFL, Major League Baseball is also tackling the issue.

The MLB, who dealt with COVID-19 issues themselves, went without fans throughout the season and most of the playoffs. However, the National League Championship series, which is currently being contested by the Los Angeles Dodgers and Atlanta Braves, allowed limited fans into games and the World Series will also be held with fans. It is important to note that both of these series are bring played in Arlington, Texas, and the American League Championship Series that was held in San Diego did not have fans present.

According to a Sports Illustrated article by Nick Selbe, the tickets were sold in pods of four that would be separated from other groups. So far this has seemed to work, as detailed in a New York Times article by David Waldstein. While the numbers in Texas are still high, they do not seem to be drastically increasing as a result of these fans and if these limited amounts of fans can stay safe and healthy, that presents hope for the assimilation of fans into sporting events in the near future.

Journalism in a Mobile World

The journalist of the past pounded on their typewriter, interviewed with a tape recorder, and marketed themselves by recommending their publication to anybody who would listen. Today’s journalist can type, interview and market themselves from the capacity of their mobile phone if they want to. This change represents not only a change in the industry, but also in the way citizens consume news every day and who they consume it from.

In many ways, the journalist can control their own destiny in today’s world. While the content they create may be for a specific company, the journalist can now be the face of their own work, especially when they post it on social media accounts that contain not only their name but also their face. This is huge, as if even though the work may not technically belong to them anymore, it is still represented by them and belongs to them in spirit

While the journalist gets some power back, the public takes even more of it back. Through social media applications like Twitter, any person can be a journalist. This is a concept called citizen journalism, and it is very common on social networks. The public is no longer dependent on the story to be brought to them by a journalist, now it could be just your average user who witnessed an event on their morning stroll. The public can get this information faster now, which has revolutionized how people consume their news.

With untrained journalists comes poor journalism, and unfortunately this happens quite a lot with citizen journalism. While trained journalists must be fact checked and edited, citizen journalists have little to nothing riding on their work. The spread of misinformation within journalism has severely hindered the industry reliability, and yet much of the fake news is being conducted by people not in the industry.

The Mobile aspect of journalism doesn’t start and stop with twitter, and social media apps in general. Reporters can use their mobile devices for pretty much anything involved with the industry. This ranges from small tools like video recording and sending emails all the way to writing and filming stories from said mobile device. Even though cameras and computers are preferred, they are not the only avenue anymore. A journalist could theoretically do their job to the fullest extent from their mobile device, and while it may not be comfortable it is a way where journalists can do their jobs in more ways then ever imaginable in the older days.

Sports in the Covid-19 World

Once the sports world stood still in March of 2019, life got quite a bit more depressing for sports fans and participants. The next few months were filled with stress and uncertainty, from players and owners quarreling to a global pandemic raging through a world at an alarming pace. When Major League Baseball returned in late July, a sense of normalcy finally returned for many around the country. With the other three North American major sports leagues returning shortly after, life returned to relative normalcy for many. However, the atmosphere of these events are far from normal, and it is now time to examine how these leagues have done during this time.

Major League Baseball (MLB)

The MLB had a lot of trouble getting their season to start, and this is mostly a result of the owners and players disagreeing on the payment situation for a shortened season. Eventually, both sides agreed to play a 60–game season with an expanded post season. The teams played home games at their own ballparks, without fans and only within their respective divisions.

A few issues did arise. Early on the Miami Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals both ran into issues with the virus spreading through their teams. In both circumstances, some blame was relayed towards players going to clubs and casinos. However, the season carried on and as the teams are looking towards the playoffs, a bubble format will be the chosen platform and the season looks to be in minimal doubt.

National Hockey League and National Basketball Association (NHL and NBA)

These two leagues are grouped together due to their similar situations. Both leagues had their seasons cancelled after about two-thirds had been played, and also both used a bubble format. The NHL split the conferences into two separate bubbles. The Eastern Conference moved to Toronto, Ontario and the Western Conference went to Edmonton, Alberta. After the first two rounds, all games were moved to the Edmonton sight.

The NBA was able to have the entire league in one location; Walt Disney World in Orlando, FL. The teams lived within the park and stayed their for the remainder of there stay in the playoffs.

The NHL had no big issues during their playoff tenure to this point, and the players only had a few issues with players leaving the bubble. Both leagues proved that the bubble is a viable option for these leagues to ensure the safety of their players, and this definitely influenced the MLB to take this route with their postseason.

National Football League (NFL)

The National Football League is the most recent league to start off, and was perhaps the least affected by the pandemic. The 2020 NFL draft was conducted over Zoom, and pre-season training was significantly lessened, but the start date was pretty typical for a normal NFL season, and certain teams have even been allowing a small amount of fans to enter games. This has been an interesting concept, and so far no major issues have arisen.

Overall, these leagues are doing better than was originally suspected. At one point, it didn’t seem like any of the leagues were going to last. However, they persisted and the focus now will be on next season, albeit less so for the NFL than the other leagues.

It is also important to note that other leagues, namely the Women’s National Basketball Association, the National Women’s Soccer League and the Professional Golf Association all were able to participate in their respective seasons with little to no issues.

Sports can work in a pandemic world. The question is how long will they be sustainable without fans present?