October 2022
This rant isn't just about Fake News. It's more about the source of Fake News. And, that's journalists.
I'm never quite sure what the term journalist covers. Is it the whole gamut from apprentice reporter on the local free newspaper all the way up to Huw Edwards with Piers Morgan and Laura Kuenssberg at the top of the mix, too? Or, is there some sort of threshold that you pass and morph from being a cub reporter writing about Mrs Slocombe's pussy that got stuck up a tree to suddenly becoming a fully-fledged journalist writing well-researched, properly fact-checked articles? And then, do you move up further and become a news presenter?
Presumably, all prospective journalists start their careers with a desire to report the news, to uncover wrongdoing, to right wrongs, to inform, etc. So, at what point in their training do they get taught to shout "Are you going to resign, Prime Minister?" across Downing Street? I mean, really? Do they actually expect the PM to stop in her/his tracks and shout back "Excellent question. Probably tomorrow on the This Morning show with Phil and Holly. Thanks for asking"? I just don't understand why they do that. And, where in their training do they migrate from being reporters of news to creators of news via speculation and, I can't find any other way of saying it, just making stuff up?
I would like to be charitable and suggest that maybe it's not the individual journalist's fault. My guess is that the pressure comes from their employers. Gone are the days when the main TV news was at 6 o'clock and we all tuned in to see which of the day's events the news editor had decided to include in the programme. Now the News is a 24-hour business. Each and every one of the 1,440 minutes in a day now has to be filled irrespective of what has actually happened that day. Even if nothing newsworthy has happened.
Consequently, I guess that journalists are directed not just to report the facts but to speculate, to look for alternative scenarios that "pad out" the facts - if there are actually any facts. And from this, we get the classic news industry-related aphorism: "Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story".
And then there are the news publications, both printed and online, that are entirely funded by advertising revenue. Without the advertising money, the publication would not survive. So, eyes need to see the adverts. For online publications, in particular, this means that journalists(?) have to create the most sensational headlines to attract attention to get the punter to click through to the article so that the punter can then be presented with the adverts that pay their wages. This is why when you read a digital headline and click through to the article, you often find that there is no story really at all. It's just fabricated "news" to get your eyes on adverts.
Sadly, in my opinion, we the punters are also responsible for the drivel that now masquerades as news. Humans appear to have an insatiable appetite for the bizarre, for gossip, for tittle-tattle and for depressing, grim, bad news. Of course, all news agencies whether printed, online or on TV, know this and produce content with suitably shocking, sensational or grim headlines.
And so we get to fake news. The likes of Trump appear, in my opinion, to have turned disseminating false information from something that was definitely unacceptable into something which, while no one would admit is acceptable, is now accepted and even expected. Ex-PM, Boris appeared to recognise this and adopt it as a strategy exploiting it so enthusiastically that it became his downfall.
I find the news depressing. It's generally doom and gloom and with so much speculation in place of facts that I now actively avoid the usual news outlets. In my opinion, it has been a race to the gutter for even the most respected of organisations. I do not feel that I have, or am, missing out. In fact, I feel that I have a more positive outlook.