Daily Dispatch

Daily Dispatch Read between all the lines

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THE production and disseminat­ion of news has long been contested terrain, but for consumers the 21st century is a minefield.

Located in an era of “post truth” and confronted almost daily with the idea of “fake news”, readers understand­ably struggle to know what or who to believe.

What is indisputab­le is that ours is an age where the production of “news” is within the grasp of many rather than a few. Anyone with a cellphone, a laptop or even access to social media can generate “content”. And they can put their “informatio­n” into the public sphere without it being subjected to the kind of checks that are usually in place at traditiona­l media institutio­ns.

The recent ANC war room scandal is a case in point.

But the appearance of “fake news” is actually nothing new. Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Reich Minister of Propaganda for the Nazi regime, was a master.

In South Africa the apartheid government was deeply involved in the propagatio­n of disinforma­tion.

What it did not have in its arsenal, however, was the kind of technology available to producers of “fake news” today.

Technology allows an extraordin­ary reach and extraordin­ary anonymity. Even robots are used to generate fake accounts.

This is not only happening in South Africa, but beyond our borders.

“Fake news” was a common refrain during Donald Trump’s presidenti­al campaign and “fake news” hit the French headlines big time this week as fallacious reports were dumped into the public sphere about French presidenti­al candidate, Francois Fillon.

The situation has reached the point where not even the titles of big media publicatio­ns or the names of credible journalist­s are sacrosanct. They are being brazenly mimicked – with obvious disingenuo­us intent.

Two weeks ago three large local media outfits – the Sunday Times, the Huffington Post South Africa and Talk Radio 702 – were targets with fake news compilers spitting out a slew of inaccurate reports and fake Twitter accounts.

One such fake tweet bore the name of the respected journalist Ferial Haffajee and stated that Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan was “a stooge of WMC” (white monopoly capital) who was going out of his way to “clip the wings of the Guptas” and their company, Oakbay.

For the news savvy, this deception would be easy to detect. The problem is the proliferat­ion of these efforts and the speed they are coming at. The Daily Maverick reports that more than 100 fake Twitter accounts have been found, while Media Monitoring Africa is tracking at least 10 fake news sites.

This general public should obviously approach with caution, particular­ly informatio­n on the electronic media.

It is the habit of profession­al journalist­s to try to fact check their informatio­n. We do not always manage to get it right, but this does not translate into fake news. The generation of disinforma­tion is a very different and dangerous beast.

A tip to readers from those of us engaged in traditiona­l news production is to be circumspec­t and if in doubt leave out, or try to read between the lines.

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