In this age of fake stories, we always provide trusted news
TODAY, your Southport Visiter, the Midweek Visiter and the Visiter.co.uk website are joining forces with local and regional titles around the UK to launch a campaign to fight fake news.
As we approach the most significant General Election in a generation, the need for independent local newspapers and their websites to report and explain the issues in a neutral, honest and balanced way is essential.
The Southport Visiter has been bringing you trusted local news since 1844 and will continue to do so for many years to come.
This approach is in keeping with our ethos of always:
Seeking to provide trusted news, campaigning on behalf of our communities.
Giving advertisers respected platforms to promote your services.
Exposing wrongdoing through painstaking investigations.
Ensuring that the voice of residents and the business community is heard with clarity and authority.
Making sure we are transparent and accountable, with reporters bylined on every article and contact details readily available.
This election will be different from any other. It is not simply that the outcome will define our future relationship with the EU and the manner in which it is negotiated; but it will be held in the context of the phenomenon of fake news.
In the past 12 months there has barely been a single global event – from the election of the President of the United States to an incident involving a gunman at a Washington pizzeria – that has not been infected by the suggestion that entirely fabricated information designed to deceive had been circulated indiscriminately via social media.
Fake news takes many forms and operates at several levels. At its most extreme, it comprises maliciously contrived statements which are cynically distributed in the guise of real news with the aim of deceiving for political or financial gain.
More frequently, it is an unsubstantiated rumour indiscriminately posted on social media which rapidly gains credence, to the distress of those featured in it and the alarm of all who read it. “Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth” is a rule of propaganda often attributed to the Nazi Joseph Goebbels.
It is little surprise that major businesses – whose role is critical to jobs and the economic success on which we all depend – are increasingly shunning digital sites that have placed their adverts alongside extremist and offensive material.
That would never happen within our print and digital pages. When you advertise your business with us, you are sharing in the family values that underpin everything we do.
We are uniquely placed to ensure that our newspapers and websites enhance and magnify your values.
Your advertisements will appear alongside content that meets the very high standards to which our profession is committed.
Fake news can be hard to identify. In November, a BuzzFeed News analysis found that top fake presidential election news stories generated more total engagement on Facebook than top election stories from 19 major news outlets combined.
The great global social media conglomerates have been slow to respond and grudging to intervene. When they do, they give the impression that their intercession is more favour than obligation.
Unlike social media and the major digital platforms, this newspaper and its website are accountable for every single word we publish.
We have signed up to a comprehensive Editors’ Code of Practice and we and all our staff have contractually bound themselves to its requirements.
This code encompasses everything from accuracy to privacy, harassment, intrusion into grief or shock, protecting children, reporting crime, and the use of clandestine devices and subterfuge.
It is explicit in the sensitivity we show in reporting suicides and protecting the most vulnerable in society, not least the victims of sexual assault.
As a result, virtually all the content that we generate ourselves is produced by journalists trained by the National Council for the Training of Journalists to the highest industry benchmarks. These reporters are qualified in a range of skills – from newspaper law and ethics to shorthand, to ensure we get every quote right.
If we do make a genuine mistake, you can contact us immediately – we are real people, locally based, living in our shared communities. We’re not some digital algorithm.
We are passionate and exquisitely professional about the way in which we hold decision makers to account, represent our home towns, and provide news and information that is suitable for whole families.
We are honest brokers of local information, upholding the values that you share with us, seeking always to do the right thing no matter how difficult that can sometimes be in fast changing times.
That all costs money. When you buy our paper or advertise with us you are supporting the very journalism and quality that keeps integrity at the heart of all we do.
We make a real difference.
In the past year alone, the campaigns run by local journalists have highlighted threats to services at Southport Hospital, while we have helped raise money for a whole host of local charities and local good causes.
We celebrate the very best in our community through our Your Heroes Awards every year; celebrate those who work in our hospitals and health services through the annual Pride Awards; salute the best bars, restaurants, hotels, and their employees each year through the Ambassador Awards; and highlight our sporting heroes through the Sefton Sports Awards.
We are a firm supporter of big local events which bring millions of visitors into our town and boost our local economy; take a look at our two-page feature on the Open Golf coming to Royal Birkdale this Summer (Pages 10 & 11) and on Southport Festival taking place this weekend (Pages 34 & 35).
Many local newspapers have been in existence for a century or more. In Southport the Visiter has been proud to serve our community for 173 years, ever since we started off in a small office in Lord Street.
Local newspapers and websites have often been the single catalyst for social change. At heart, they are the conscience of a community and the defender of its truth.
With pride, we provide trusted news and honest advertisement platforms and thanks to the tireless diligence of our staff you can be confident that our stories are always exactly what they purport to be: the genuine article.
Fact – not fake.