Fake news has real consequences

Debunked TVA report should be a wake-up call to the industry

An event that never even happened dominated the Quebec news cycle late last week, spawned front-page headlines, drew concerned comments from Premier Philippe Couillard, sparked a ministerial investigation, prompted protests, fuelled social media outrage and raised some disturbing questions.

TVA’s report that a Côte-desNeiges mosque had demanded that women be excluded from a construction site on their doorstep has been fully and utterly debunked. TVA made a gradual climbdown, first standing by their report, then blaming the “evolving” witness accounts, before finally apologizing on Friday, some 48 hours after it first went to air. An investigation by the Labour minister and the Quebec Construction Commission, not to mention follow-up reporting by competing media outlets, demonstrated the incident was totally false.

But the controversy it set off won’t be extinguished any time soon. The story seems to fall into the category of fake news. And the thing about fake news is once it’s out there, it takes on a life of its own.

Comments on TVA’s Facebook site ranged from clinging to the belief there must still be some truth to the story, to suspicion that the Quebec government forced the network to issue a mea culpa. Far-right group La Meute huffed madly on the embers of the story suggesting a coverup. The obscure Canadian Coalition of Concerned Citizens organized a “women rally” (sic) outside the Ahl-Ill Bait and Baitul-Mukarram mosques around the time of Friday prayers “because in Canada our ladies have equal rights with men.” And after the initial pile-on by the usual suspects in Quebec, ultraconservative Rebel Media commentator Ezra Levant got in on the action.

Something that never even happened unfairly turned bewildered Montreal Muslims into targets of unjustified vitriol. The strange events should set alarm bells ringing about the power of fake news in Quebec’s charged social and political climate.

It’s worth examining the distinction between the media making a simple mistake and fake news for clues about how this happened — and more important, why?

Errors creep into news coverage all the time, from misstated figures, to omissions that skew a story, to factual blunders.

Typically, they are unintentional, whether because of inattention or sloppiness. For the most part, errors are quickly corrected, for the sake of accuracy and credibility. All journalists screw up at one point or another, including yours truly.

But there’s something more sinister about fake news. Fake news is increasingly something cooked up to become a wedge issue or to serve an ideological, often nefarious, purpose. Sometimes it’s a hoax that spreads like wildfire, other times it’s a misrepresentation of a murky half-truth.

As the group FactCheck.org states: “Fake news isn’t new, but it now spreads quickly through social media.” It first entered the popular vernacular during the bizarre 2016 U.S. election that installed President Donald Trump in the White House, but it has since been used to try to discredit the mainstream media, bend information to suit a shadowy agenda and usher in a post-truth era where personal belief wins out over facts, data and science.

Radio-Canada has even uncovered fake news sites, purporting to be operating in Quebec but are based in Ukraine. So it’s reader beware.

There is an information war being waged for the hearts and minds of the public, not only in the U.S. where the alt-right is looking to bring racism, white supremacy, misogyny and xenophobia back into the open, but here in Canada and Quebec as well. We are not immune to the destructive potential of fake news. And we must be on guard.

Normally, mainstream news organizations play a role in dispelling bogus news. But in the case of the TVA report, many questions linger. Were they taken for a ride by someone deliberately planting a phoney story to whip up a frenzy? Was this a misunderstanding that could have been quickly cleared up with some basic reporting? Or was this a case of not wanting to let the facts get in the way of a good story that fits the narrative of Quebec values being under threat by so-called reasonable accommodations to minority rights the network so zealously peddles?

Either way, they deserve their fair share of the blame and shame.

As traditional media brands fight for survival in the face of digital disruption, their reputation and integrity are their primary assets. But the media have a particular responsibility to separate fact from fiction, especially when it comes to information that risks inflaming intolerance and hate.

Couillard said the incident should be a wake-up call for the press, which it should. But it should also be a lesson to Quebec political leaders, who over the coming year will be tempted to play identity politics as they jockey for position in an election year.

They must avoid taking the bait when these controversies erupt, especially if their veracity is in doubt. And they must steer away

from helping perpetuate myths and misunderstandings with rhetoric that divides rather than unites Quebecers.

Preaching tolerance and respect is too frequently coupled with doublespeak emanating from the National Assembly. The government denounces Islamophobia one day, then introduces Bill 62 banning the niqab worn by a tiny fraction of Muslim women another day. This spreads mixed messages.

The words politicians speak, journalists write and the media amplifies have very real consequence. We have already seen a spike in hate crimes against minorities, vandalism at synagogues and mosques, far-right protests and, tragically, a mass shooting of worshippers at a Quebec City mosque last January.

In the midst of the information wars, fake news is a particularly potent weapon against which we must stand guard.