Fact or Fiction? Surviving in the age of misinformation

As autocrats and divisive politicians grab power around the world, we see a startling trend. The sheer volume of actors with ill intent disseminating misinformation and disinformation, seeds conflict, confusion and instability, even in democratic societies.

Volumes of evidence exist connecting misinformation and disinformation to significant political upheavals. The January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol, the Brexit vote motivating the U.K. to leave the European Union, and the election of the son of an authoritarian as President of the Philippines illustrate how the state of play derails democratic values.

Disseminating misinformation and disinformation has never been easier or more compelling. Bots, deep fakes, and AI serve as the perfect conduit. The rise of social media, the decline in local news, the corporatization of major media conglomerates, and the removal of foreign correspondents gives wide berth to these dangerous tools. The phrase “fake news” even earned its very own Wikipedia page.

Civilization has experienced many transformations. The Classical Period introduced written histories. The Industrial Era produced volumes of new inventions and increased life expectancy. The Information Age led to unprecedented technological innovation. Today, we seem to have entered the Age of Misinformation. People in established democracies once expressed disbelief when dictators manipulated media in authoritarian countries.

When reports surfaced of the killing and imprisonment of journalists, we gasped. When tyrants punished civilians for speaking out, we proclaimed, “Not us! Not in a free society.” Yet, we seem oblivious to the eerily natural progression from united to divided. In today’s most advanced democracies, citizens themselves engage in emblazoned political battles, burying us in a deluge of misinformation. We struggle to distinguish the difference between fact and fiction. Advanced by unethical goals, information battles seed discord and serves as distractions.

Democracies plummet as Age of Misinformation thrives

Information battles draw our attention away from solving global problems. By keeping us uninformed and confused, they position us to fight one another rather than collaborating and searching for solutions. Most importantly, they deny us the ability to debate on the basis of agreed-upon facts.

Agreeing upon a set of facts remains fundamental to solving any social problem. We see how life hangs in the balance when facts become fluid and debatable. During the COVID-19 Pandemic, millions of people perished while factions engaged in information wars, refusing to concede common ground. In October 2024, real people displaced by hurricanes in Florida believed a Presidential candidate’s lies that FEMA had no money to help them. Some citizens refused government aid. In one community, FEMA relief workers fled when armed militia arrived.

It is in this very battle against misinformation and disinformation from which Orato World Media emerged. At Orato, we commit to a singular goal: to only tell true verifiable stories from and about real people. Orato’s content gives people a reliable and trusted source for news, while generating understanding, empathy, and compassion for the people impacted by world events. Our journalists are on the ground, interviewing subjects, researching, and verifying the facts of those individual accounts and writing eyewitness stories out of newsworthy events. Uniquely and insightfully, journalists tell those stories in the words of those who experienced the event, in the first-person.

Journalists and editors then consistently and rigorously test the veracity of each Orato story. By reclaiming the trust that once existed between the media and its consumers, Orato has garnered followers in nearly every country in the world.  Surprisingly, the United States represents one of those countries we draw the most audience from as readers search for true stories from people outside of the continental US.

Orato celebrates the human spirit

When asked, “How have you been so successful,” our answer is clear. Every week, we hear a reader, neighbor, or colleague say, “I can’t trust anything these days.” We all wonder, how to discern fact from fiction. Yet, when readers encounter an Orato story, they find something truly unique: a verified, first-person account from a news breaking event. No commentary. No politics. No claims of conspiracy. Simply a real living human being telling the story of how they managed to survive that newsworthy event and what happened to them and those around them.

So, when Hamas invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, and the IDF responded by invading Gaza, we were there. Our journalists brought forth stories from all sides of the conflict – simple, first-person accounts in vivid detail. As weather events pummel the environment, we are there, talking to the people in the communities affected and those developing innovations to solve climate-related problems.

As conflicts rage around the world, we talk to the ones walking through it. We hear their testimony. It certainly appears that life on our planet is quite grim, but at Orato, we also celebrate. We celebrate the resilience of the human spirit. We shine a light on real people, driven to do great things, like our incredible athletes, artists, activists, and freedom fighters.

At the risk of being colloquial, the coolest thing about Orato is not what we say about ourselves. Rather, it is the fascination and delight we see on the faces of friends, neighbors, and journalists when they first hear our mission and read our stories. That delight has permeated our brand from continent to continent. That fascination anchors our commitment to fighting fake news. You can count on us to continue to report from the ground when newsworthy events emerge.

Join us today. Sign Orato’s #GlobalCooperationNow! petition and make a gift to the Orato World Media Foundation.

The Orato World Media Foundation Inc. is a non-profit corporation incorporated in the state of Delaware, USA in 2021 and certified by the IRS on March 25, 2022, as a tax-exempt entity from federal income tax under Internal Revenue Code (IRC) Section 501(c)(3) that is qualified to receive tax deductible bequests, devises, transfers, or gifts under Section 2055, 2106 or 2522. This corporation’s mandate is to invest in the teaching, training and engagement of professional journalists to learn how to write first-person stories to thereby create a network of correspondents to interview, verify and produce first-person news stories from real people (eyewitnesses, survivors, whistleblowers, first responders, photographers, videographers to name a few) and who’ve been directly impacted by a current and or newsworthy event.

Wherever they may be located and in whatever language they speak, Orato’s journalists and correspondents will represent a community of professional writers dedicated to the task of reporting the news in the words of the interview subject after verifying the facts and collecting the evidence which establishes the veracity of the interview subject’s truthful account.

In addition to the above, this non-profit corporation will be dedicated to the establishment, publication, and production of Orato’s first-person content in as many commonly spoken languages as humanly possible.  It will also focus on incorporating complimenting features into their online content which will increase the appeal like audio functionality and entertaining elements such as polls, petitions and puzzles.