We are our own best filters
problem. As in, we don’t have enough.
Hilliam, of course, was at the centre of a now widely discredited story published just over a fortnight ago about the so-called ‘‘white tangata whenua’’, claiming an unnamed Edinburgh University pathologist had examined two skulls excavated by him and concluded they originated in Wales three millennia ago. In other words, white settlers arrived in New Zealand long before Maori.
It’s the kind of wishful revisionist history white schoolchildren in apartheid South Africa were taught – the idea that the various indigenous tribes the first European settlers encountered had migrated south and only just reached the bottom of the continent at the same time the settlers were hopping off their ships, rather than being long-term residents. Hilliam’s narrative has not achieved the same traction, but the two stories have in common a lack of robust evidence.
The fact that, once serious scrutiny was applied, the Hilliam story disappeared from the website of the Northern Advocate, and its editor issued an apology, is the issue here. This isn’t an attack on that paper, but a recognition of the fact that at a time when social media constantly puts all sorts of unfiltered claims and opinions into the public arena, the media, trying to get information out as quickly as possible, can be as susceptible as anyone else to letting improperly filtered information slip through the cracks. Any media organisation is potentially vulnerable and we have to redouble our efforts to make sure our filters are working efficiently.
Journalists of a certain age would have been taught about the news media’s role as information ‘‘gatekeepers’’, there to ensure the important information got through to the public, and that ranging from questionable to downright dodgy didn’t. These days, sadly, the gatekeeper concept seems more likely to be applied to the public relations industry, often seen as trying to keep inconvenient facts behind the proverbial gate.
All of which also puts an onus on each of us as individuals to view the information we receive critically and analytically. We’ve all seen, in the United States, how a social media site that allows people’s stream-of-consciousness conspiracy theorising into the public domain untested can influence the destiny of the entire planet. At the end of the day, the best filter we each have against the balderdash is our own common sense.