Back in December 2016, Denzel Washington found himself under the bright, intrusive lights of a press junket, fielding questions about a piece of fabricated news that had placed him in a situation he’d never actually experienced. His response wasn’t just a clever soundbite; it was a candid, weary diagnosis of a media culture in freefall. When he famously remarked, “If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you do read it, you’re misinformed,” he wasn’t merely cracking a joke. He was opening a window into the frustration many of us feel today—the sense that our information environment has become a labyrinth of speed over substance, where the truth is often the first casualty of the race to the finish line.
Washington’s point was never a condemnation of journalism as a noble endeavor, but rather a sharp critique of the toxic incentives driving the industry today. He likened the consumption of modern news to the mindless gulping of empty calories, suggesting that we have become addicted to a deluge of information that actually suppresses, rather than fosters, true understanding. By shifting the conversation toward the long-term, societal effects of this “always-on” saturation, he highlighted a paradox: the more information we cram into our daily routines, the less equipped we seem to be to navigate reality. He wasn’t just talking about ink and paper anymore; he was talking about an ecosystem that prioritizes the sensory hit of a headline over the heavy lifting of verification.
As his remarks continued, the weight of his argument shifted from a critique of the media to a sober reminder of our collective responsibility. He spoke with a quiet, measured authority about the obsession with being “first” at any cost, a trend that has only accelerated in the years since he stood on that stage. For Washington, the tragedy wasn’t just that mistakes were being made, but that we had cultivated a society where speed is prioritized over ethics. He observed a culture that has stopped caring about who gets hurt or what gets destroyed in the process of generating clicks, delivering the chilling, prescient observation: “Anything you practice you’ll get good at. Including B.S.”
Looking at the digital landscape in 2026, it is impossible to ignore how his words have aged into a grim reality. The “fake news” discourse of 2016 has evolved into something far more slippery and dangerous. It is no longer just about wild, fabricated lies; it is about the weaponization of context—the cropped video, the missing data point, and the seductive power of a narrative that is repeated until it feels like truth. This is the hallmark of the attention economy, an invisible engine that demands we reward impact and noise rather than depth. When the goal is to be the first to post, the traditional safeguards of verification and nuance are the first things to be tossed overboard, and corrections rarely make it far enough to catch up to the initial, faulty report.
The danger of this cycle is that everything is now treated as “content,” and content is a ravenous beast that requires constant fueling. When we consume news in this way, we aren’t becoming informed citizens; we are becoming exhausted ones. We are trapped in a loop where the sheer volume of information provides the illusion of enlightenment while creating a fog of fatigue. Because we are so overwhelmed by the sheer velocity of the news cycle, it becomes easier to outsource our judgment to the first thing we read or the most viral headline we encounter. We have effectively traded the hard work of critical thinking for the convenience of immediate, bite-sized outrage.
Ultimately, Washington’s challenge remains a vital call to action for every reader. He isn’t suggesting we retreat into ignorance, but rather that we reclaim our agency from the machines of misinformation. The path forward requires us to be deliberate: to search for original sources, to remain skeptical of perfect headlines, and to realize that when a story feels too neat or too incendiary, it likely lacks the full truth. If we want to move toward a healthier information diet, we must internalize the core of Denzel’s message—that the value of a story is anchored not in the speed of its delivery, but in the integrity of its truth. By choosing to read thoughtfully rather than reflexively, we can start to break the cycle of being misinformed.