Becoming a Smart News Consumer: Jacquie Jordan Of TVGuestpert On How To Spot Disinformation, Fake News, And Conspiracy Theories
An Interview With David Leichner
Cognitive dissonance is when you hear, learn, or see a piece of information that doesn’t match what you already know. Psychologically speaking, most folks shut down when they are faced with cognitive dissonance. People like me, which professionally speaking makes me a journalist, start researching and digging for consistencies and inconsistencies of information and their matches through a variety of sources. Until we feel comfortable finding what feels like the truth but sometimes this takes a lot of digging which in conspiracy theory language is called a rabbit hole.
In an era where information is abundant yet misinformation is rampant, the ability to discern fact from fiction has never been more crucial. The spread of disinformation, fake news, and conspiracy theories can have profound impacts on our elections, healthcare systems, and national security, influencing public opinion and decision-making on critical issues. As news consumers, how do we develop the skills to navigate this complex information landscape? As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Jacquie Jordan.
Jacquie Jordan is a two-time Emmy Nominated television producer, veteran media professional, and successful business owner having come up the ranks of unscripted television programming including news, talk shows, reality shows, and pilots to run the industry recognized TVGuestpert & TVGuestpert Publishing, as a New York Times Best-Selling Publisher. Jacquie is the host of the Emmy Eligible broadcast podcast “Front & Center with Jacquie Jordan.” She is the author of three of her own books, “Get on TV! The Insider’s Guide to Pitching the Producers & Promoting Yourself,” “Heartfelt Marketing: Allowing the Universe to Be Your Business Partner,” “The Ultimate On Camera Guidebook: Hosts*Guests*Influencers.” Jacquie is a regular media contributor as a pop culture expert on Newsmax, Scripps TV, NewsNation, CNN & Fox News Channel. Jacquie’s professional focus is on building businesses through media exposure and visibility for her clients. She finds reverence in life with a philanthropy on animal advocacy, sovereign health and wellness. Most recently Jacquie was a featured speaker at Harvard University Undergraduate Women in Business on the topic of Empowering the Voices and Vision of Women for the intercollegiate business conference theme of unfiniSHEd business. Jacquie is a TEDxUniversityofDelaware speaker, her alma mater, on the topic “Generation X: Why We Deserve New Branding.” She is also the Curator for TEDxFranklin’s Inaugural Event on the theme of “Good Vibrations.”
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you. Can you tell us a bit about how you grew up?
I’m the first born of three, and I was producing plays on the deck in the backyard of my childhood house for my neighborhood playmates and brother and sister. One day while on the set of the daytime show, “The Donny & Marie Show,” I realized I had actually been doing “this,” meaning, “producing,” my whole life.
I’ve grown up with a mixture of organization and wonder in the world. In Catholic School in the second grade, we were tasked with selling chocolate candy bars for a school fundraiser. Without much instruction or guidance, I somehow had the initiative to walk the neighborhood daily selling out my boxes until I outsold the entire selling school single-handedly cumulatively. My class won a trip to Burger King.
In my youth, I also challenged what I was being shown and taught. I didn’t take things at face value. During my second grade, at seven years old, first confession, I told the Priest that I wasn’t sure that I believed in the same God that they believed in, nor did I think I had sinned, even though I knew I was not perfect. I told the priest I was a “Good Girl.” I was sentenced to 500 Hail Mary’s.
My inquisitive nature has not been out of defiance but a curiosity and need for understanding more, and dig deep where I suspected incongruency.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
I travel the world through the people that I meet. I’m the person next to THE person in the story. I’m there in the room, and witnessing experiences most people never experience, but there I AM, and it’s never about me. This has shaped how I view professional media narratives which is the focus of our conversation today.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now?
After years of producing countless shows, segments and even my clients; I enjoy bringing content I care about forward; most recently through my podcast Front & Center with Jacquie Jordan. I like bringing the kaleidoscope of unique perspectives and ideas to the world, especially for people who are behind the scenes who have not received the recognition for the efforts they put out or the wisdom that they know. I am able to provide a vehicle to story tell that content.
How do you think that will help people?
As through my work at TVGuestpert, if I am reliable and trustworthy source, then people who know, follow, or are interested in me will be helped by the content or information I am able to share.
Ok, thank you. Let’s now move on to our main topic. For the benefit of our readers can you tell us a bit why you are an authority on the subject of countering disinformation, fake news, and conspiracy theories?
I don’t know if I am the authority on disinformation, fake news, and conspiracy theories per se; however, my unique background in the media on multiple levels gives me a unique birds-eye perspective of who is pulling the strings, where the money is flowing from and to, and who benefits from stories that are placed out in the world through the media. And if usually being right makes me a conspiracy theorist, then I am guilty.
This may seem obvious but it is helpful to articulate it. Can you tell us a bit why disinformation and fake news is so harmful for our society? Can you share some examples?
I am currently working on a book with NYU adjunct professional, Darren Campo called Artificially Intelligent: How Do We Co-exist. In this time, #2024, not only are we being manipulated by the usual forces that benefit from audience persuasion, but we now have the element of artificial intelligence as a tool and a mechanism to essentially create the perception of reality for the collective- whether it’s real/true or not. If there is enough collective buy-in, a story becomes true. Repeat a lie enough, and it becomes true. Even if it’s for a moment, it can become truth. And this is more dangerous than ever. Through the deletion of data, we can erase historic facts, timelines, hide information and context that is so needed in order to misdirect society to discern information for their own best choices. And this war over information has become highly dangerous. The most significant part of this experience at this time, is that it has forced people to “wake up” but as I like to say, it has also forced people to take responsibility for what is creating their own reality; and not merely and blindly make choices for themselves and their families on face value. It’s also important to vet who is the keeper of the research in the digital space since corporations are housing that information.
And then the 3 questions need to be applied again:
who benefits from the influence?
where does the money flow?
and how does the information/disinformation affect the perception of the collective choices?
As artificial intelligence speeds up; it creates and mimics, such as ChatGPT; creating fake videos that look real and true and imprinting pictures and audio on the masses. It’s becoming difficult for a passive viewer to tell the difference. When you heighten people in fear which is how people get personally scammed, it’s easier to manipulate the perception of others because their discernment has been compromised. This is the plague of the new century.
Why do you think this has become such a huge problem in recent years?
If you can imagine that we’ve only had the iPhone since 2008, in a matter of only 15 years we have changed the entire fabric of our human existence. And in most cases, without even seeing the consequences that are coming. As a society, we accepted convenience and traded in our privacy, our data, our reactions (through emotions) and gave strangers from around the world pictures of our children. This was a bad deal for humanity, in my opinion. For example, our digital banking, although easy, because we no longer have to stand in lines or sit in the car at the window to deposit our weekly paycheck. The convenience afforded money to be deposited, transferred, or withdrawn instantly. The downside is we’re dangerously close to being pushed into an entirely digital currency society which has dystopian ramifications. Because we no longer fill out paperwork in a doctor’s office, we have watched significant data breeches of our medical information online. We’re easily hooked by our need to know, as millions signed up for services such as 23andme, only to have that information compromised. And now with our faces and names on social media, fraud, cloning privacy are becoming impossible to retain. Many cemeteries no longer put the date of death on gravestones because of the amount fraud that’s created from scammers done to a dead person.
How does one distinguish between credible news sources and those that are prone to spreading disinformation?
Checking sources can no longer be at face value. You have to understand that six corporations own 90% of the media in America. When it comes to social media, you even have to stop and think about who are the people who have time all day to create memes, pull videos and drop them. Massive money is spent by organizations to influence social media users just on an imprint. The “meme wars” has become powerful, so if you don’t know the source, I always sit back and watch how the source behaves over time. To answer the 3 questions again: how do they benefit? Where does the money come from? And what is the outcome of the audience persuasion?
What exactly is the problem with conspiracy theories? Why can’t a conspiracy be true?
That’s a funny question because in my experience most conspiracy theories turn out to be true. You and I might have a different list of what those conspiracy theories are; however, I’ve been around enough to know that usually when there is smoke there is fire.
Example of a minor media conspiracy theory that turned out to be true which is a good template for what we’re talking about here: Rosie O’Donnell had a popular daytime television show in 1996, produced by Warner Brothers Television. At that time, they went to great lengths to conceal that Rosie was a gay woman, for fear that it would alienate her very popular straight stay at home female audience. The conspiracy theory was that she was gay. And after the show ended in 2002, viewers found out she was in fact gay. Granted, none of this is a big deal by 2024 standards, but in 1996, this was the secret that the media needed to conceal. And it ran around like a rumor or conspiracy theory until it was revealed that it was true. Who benefited? Warner Brothers TV. Where did the money flow? Advertisers who wanted to sell to straight stay at home females and Warner Brothers TV. How was the audience’s perception manipulated? The audience identified with Rosie O’Donnell as a straight female in their living room every day during the day while they were at home.
You can’t sell a product to someone who isn’t a target audience. As an example, for a conspiracy theory, this story may seem ridiculous by today’s standards but that’s also what happens to conspiracy theories when they turn out to be true: they eventually get absorbed into the collective consciousness, as if they were no big deal to begin with. A conspiracy theory, at the end of the day, is usually nothing more than a truth that is ahead of its time.
What psychological factors contribute to the belief in and spread of conspiracy theories?
Cognitive dissonance is when you hear, learn, or see a piece of information that doesn’t match what you already know. Psychologically speaking, most folks shut down when they are faced with cognitive dissonance. People like me, which professionally speaking makes me a journalist, start researching and digging for consistencies and inconsistencies of information and their matches through a variety of sources. Until we feel comfortable finding what feels like the truth but sometimes this takes a lot of digging which in conspiracy theory language is called a rabbit hole.
Can you give us a few ways to identify or spot fake news and disinformation? If you can please give us some examples.
First, I go with my gut. It’s not what I think/know it’s what the information feels like. Did you know that based on social media, news and our cells phones in our hands, we are receiving a million data points of information an hour broadcasting a million hour to process. Whereas a human who lived a hundred years ago, may have processed a hundred thousand data points in an entire lifetime. So, we’re forced to sort information whether we know we are doing it or not all the time: real/not real, in my reality, not in my reality. Our ability to be emotionally triggered is also a factor in our ability to discern information as it comes to us in this sourcing of a million datapoints an hour. Jussie Smollett was an example for me, of a story I knew right away was untrue and at the time, potentially motivated. I listened to how the news was reporting the story, as it simply did not make sense, and it quickly unraveled in the next couple of days. Listen carefully, to when a story has multiple inconsistencies, or the official narrative dismissed elements of a story that were once previously reported. The problem is most people are moving too fast in life just living day to day that they don’t hear the thread of a story, they just grab the snapshot which over time is usually out of context.
Can you give us a few ways to identify a conspiracy theory? If you can please give us some examples.
I’m going to redefine conspiracy theory as curiosity theory. For example, people were demanding answers about Area 51 and invaded the compound. I like to say taxpayers are paying for what is behind Area 51 anyways, so they do deserve answers. When I was a producer at the Montel Williams show, I sent Montel Williams to Area 51 and upon approaching just even the outside of it, all our cameras and tape were confiscated by the military police. This is an example of many things that make you go “…hmm?”
What should one do after they have identified disinformation? Should they simply ignore it?
There is a personal responsibility component to all of this. If you don’t have your internal core values set up inside yourself, and your internal GPS set to your own true north, you’re going to go through the washing machine cycle of: trauma, emotional manipulation, fear and distrust/mistrust based on media narratives. So how an individual digests their news content is also entirely on them. Everybody needs to have personal boundaries on who/what/when/where/why they are consuming info. Some of the craziest people I know leave 24hr news channels on their television 24/7 and that creates the worldview of their entire perception of reality. So, our participation is as much our responsibility as is the controllers of the media for putting it out there. Ironically as a media producer, the biggest media stories of my lifetime I’ve always learned about directly from another person and not from the news itself. Which is ironic, and I’ve never missed out on any news story ever because if it’s important enough then people are talking about it. I will also say that the biggest news sources of our lifetimes have not gone away because the truth hasn’t been fully reconciled and I would use the Titanic as an example of that.
Can you please share your “4 Things Everyone Should Know To Become A Smart News Consumer?”
1 . How do they benefit?
2 . Where does the money come from?
3 . What is the outcome of the audience persuasion?
4. What’s your personal responsibility in the story?
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I would create a co-operative under my media membership’s initiative where people could report on the block chain- kind of like a Reddit on the block chain. You can follow the line of thinking, but it couldn’t be erased.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Front and Center with Jacquie Jordan YouTube and Rumble, and heard all places that you listen to your favorite audio podcast.
https://frontandcenterpodcast.com/
This was very inspiring and informative. Thank you so much for the time you spent on this interview!
About The Interviewer: David Leichner is a veteran of the Israeli high-tech industry with significant experience in the areas of cyber and security, enterprise software and communications. At Cybellum, a leading provider of Product Security Lifecycle Management, David is responsible for creating and executing the marketing strategy and managing the global marketing team that forms the foundation for Cybellum’s product and market penetration. Prior to Cybellum, David was CMO at SQream and VP Sales and Marketing at endpoint protection vendor, Cynet. David is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Jerusalem Technology College. He holds a BA in Information Systems Management and an MBA in International Business from the City University of New York.
Becoming a Smart News Consumer: Jacquie Jordan Of TVGuestpert On How To Spot Disinformation, Fake… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.