By Ethan Dixon, Frisco (Texas) Heritage High School
Kate Menz dreams of a world without fake news.
“That’s probably the most important thing in my life,” Kate Menz said about her family, “My family is a very important part of my life and, I could not imagine doing the things I do every day, even living without the support of my family.
Kate’s family history is full of talented journalists and writers stretching from her aunt Mary Kathrine Dyer, who broke barriers for women in journalism becoming one of the first female editors at the Oklahoman, to another aunt Kelly Dyer Fry, a member of the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame who has been honored for her work with addiction and mental illness within her community.
As a rising sophomore at Bishop McGuinness High School in Oklahoma City, Kate has ample time to decide what she plans to study and if she would like to follow in the footsteps of her family. Speaking confidently, Kate said she feels “more support than pressure from her family to pursue journalism.” This mindset led her to consider journalism for reasons of her own, not those of prior family expectations.
Statistics show Kates’s concern is genuine. In January, the University of Southern California posted a study about the key reason why fake news spreads: Social media platforms reward users for habitually sharing information despite many users’ inability to identify true information from false information.
This “reward system” for misinformation provides news shares the opportunity to be lazy with their work. Using things like clickbait to reel in uninformed users and sharing misinformation rather than putting the hard work into researching, building, and publishing a real story with real information that users can use in day-to-day life.
Another study published in January of 2023 by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that just 15% of the most habitual news sharers in the research were responsible for spreading about 30% to 40% of the fake news. This shows that just a small group of individuals are responsible for most of today’s fake news. All we need is some willing journalists to fight back against the unwillingness to put in the work.
This is where Kate comes in. Kate plans to fight fake news by providing the truth to her readers.
“My goal in journalism would be to accurately inform people on the events of our world,” Kate said.
“There’s a lot of misinformation that breeds a lot of hate in the world,” Kate said, “because when people are inaccurately portrayed in the media, then it puts a divide between different people in the world.”
At the end of the day, whatever Kate pursues, she has confidence that if her path leads her to follow the family before her, journalism is in good hands.
