Oprah Winfrey Condemns Fake News In Powerful Speech At USC

Oprah Winfrey spoke at University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism, admitting that there is “bad news” out there.

“Everything around us, including and in particular the internet and social media, is now being used to erode trust in our institutions, interfere in our elections, and wreak havoc on our infrastructure,” she said. “It hands advertisers a map to our deepest desires, it enables misinformation to run rampant, attention spans to run short, and false stories from phony sites to run circles around major news outlets. We have literally walked into traffic while staring at our phones.”

“The good news is there really is a solution,” she said, “and the solution is each and every one of you because you will become the new editorial gatekeepers, an ambitious army of truth-seekers who will arm yourselves with the intelligence and the insight and the facts necessary to strike down deceit. You’re in a position to keep all of those who now disparage real news, you are the ones who are going to keep those people in check.”

“Why?” she continued. “Because you can push back and you can answer false narratives with real information and you can set the record straight. And you also have the ability to and power to give voice to those who desperately now need to tell their stories and have their stores told.”