All this fury at ‘fake news’, and yet that’s exactly what FG and Naughten are trying to feed us right now!
FAKE news. It’s the scourge of the age, we are told, and those who mostly tell us so are politicians. Indeed, the entire political structures of power in the developed world are so publicly adamant fake news is the most dangerous threat to democracy, they have called the social media companies to account.
Last week, after bruising interrogations by the US Congress, Facebook felt compelled to take out full-page advertisements in national newspapers telling people how to spot fake news, while the European Union has set up a high-level task group to determine how to neutralise it.
This naturally gives politicians the chance to show themselves in a good light, standing up against a corporate behemoth and defending the little guy. It is, of course, all smoke and mirrors, and the reason why is simple – politicians actually invented fake news, and not today or yesterday either.
They always have attempted to come up with justifications for what clearly was wrong, and nowadays are helped in that endeavour by entire teams of spin doctors whose sole job is to portray something not quite as it really is. It doesn’t even have to be about the big issues. It’s can be as petty as manipulating that local news story about a new road, or reopened hospital ward, to imply the credit should go to an individual TD or councillor in order to present him in the best light. At other times, it’s as much about withholding the full facts as it is about supplying them.
It’s disingenuous. It’s misleading. And it’s fake.
We notice it more when politicians go big, though. How many times did Richard Nixon lie before leaving the White House in disgrace over the Watergate burglary? Remember how the entire British establishment came together to try to hush up the Profumo affair. How often did Charles Haughey claim his personal wealth and all the trappings that came with it – his Abbeville mansion, the horses, the private island, the yacht – were hard earned, rather than the result of donations from friends? How often did Bertie Ahern do the same?
Bill Clinton memorably ‘never had sexual relations with that woman’, even though the entire world knew Monica Lewinsky was telling the truth. And, perhaps most tragically of all, George W Bush and Tony Blair led a catastrophic war against Saddam Hussein and Iraq based on the clearly fake justification that the dictator had built and stored, and was prepared to use, weapons of mass destruction. The collateral damage to that country and its people, and the anti-Western sentiment it fomented, reverberate to this day.
Just last year, Enda Kenny was forced to tell the Dáil he was guilty of ‘not giving accurate information’ to the Dáil relating to conversations he had with Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone, concerning a meeting with Sergeant Maurice McCabe. The ongoing Disclosures Tribunal daily merely thickens the fog between the real and the fake, about who knew what and when, and what they said publicly even while very likely knowing it was untrue.
And, as we all know, every government in the world chooses its timing to bury bad news – a day of global catastrophe leaves most us aghast and glued to the news, but cynically is seen in the corridors of power as a window of opportunity to announce depressed economic figures.
Lobbyist
Politics used to be the art of the possible, but now it feels more like the ability to stand up in public and attempt to convince us all that black is white.
Today, we find ourselves in the position where Minister for Communications Denis Naughten, the man who actually is charged with the oversight of media ownership, gave a heads-up to a paid lobbyist regarding the processing of the mooted sale of Celtic Media, which owns regional newspapers, to Independent News and Media.
Mr Naughten says that when, on November 11, 2016, he told Eoghan Ó Neachtain, of Heneghan Public Relations, the sale probably would be referred to the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland for further scrutiny, he was sharing a personal opinion.
Mr Ó Neachtain passed the information to his boss Nigel Heneghan, who emailed it to then INM chairman Leslie Buckley, who in turn forwarded it to INM’s largest shareholder, Denis O’Brien. For a personal opinion, it went around the houses like Usain Bolt. Mr Naughten is allowed to share his opinion on whether Ronaldo or Messi is the greatest living footballer, but not on anything he is charged with overseeing. In that respect, ministers do not have personal opinions. Everything they say derives from their office, and information they let slip often is commercially valuable.
What is even more troubling is that when subsequently asked in the Dáil, on December 6, if the Celtic Media deal was to be referred to the BAI, Mr Naughten said: ‘It would not be appropriate for me to provide any further comment while this case is under consideration. I have not made my views known and I am not going to.’ He was telling Sinn Féin and Social Democrat TDs he could not share with them the opinion that had been sitting in the inbox of one of the country’s wealthiest men for over three weeks.
Yesterday, his colleagues endlessly repeated, as a defence, that it was a personal opinion. That is spin, and they must believe us to be very gullible if they think we will fall for it, because it is fake news, full stop.
Equally, on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland yesterday, Fine Gael TD Peter Burke tried to hammer home the spin that the information about a BAI referral was in the public domain, another theme taken up by others as the day wore on. The clear implication was that the dogs on the street knew about it.
In fact, intense media coverage of the deal at the time was speculation, not fact. The journalists at the newspaper did not know if they would have jobs by that Christmas, the elected representatives of the Dáil did not know, and the BAI did not know it would be called upon to adjudicate until January – so if the dogs on the street knew, it was a very small pack of dogs on a very short street.
So to suggest that this somehow was information widely available, and that the minister therefore did nothing wrong, flies directly in the face of the detailed chronology of events. It is fake news. This being Ireland, and the cold whiff of realpolitik hanging in the air, Mr Naughten very likely will survive the crisis. No one seems to have the stomach for a general election right now, especially with a divisive referendum looming, and even the Opposition sabre rattling seems limp and half-hearted.
Make no mistake, though. The minister’s initial claim in December 2016 to this country’s parliament, its most august and sacred institution, that he had not made his views on the Celtic Media takeover known, also was fake news.
And the next time a politician takes the Donald Trump route and complains about fake news, he or she should remember one thing. You lot started it, and on the evidence of the past two days, you have no appetite to change your behaviour.