BRIAN READE: ‘Mainstream media doesn't spread a tissue of lies like fake news'
ONE of the perks of being a journalist is that you get to hear the wickedest of whispers before anyone else. Some of which are even true. Not the one about the Hollywood star and his penchant for rodents or the tape of the BBC newsreader and her colourful coital howls.
But the England football manager who left his platform shoes outside a Swedish TV star's bedroom to let her nanny know he was testing the strength of her mattress springs, and the Prime Minister who let Downing Street become Party Central during Covid, turned out to be true.
Yet this newspaper only printed those tales after weeks of dedicated fact-finding and rigorous legal testing. That's the thing about the so-called Mainstream or Legacy Media that you are now reading. We have to be pretty certain we are right before we publish, and although we occasionally, famously even, get things wrong, the vast majority of times what you read, in this paper at least, is the truth.
Sadly the same can't be said about some of the emerging media. This week a false claim that Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer were snorting cocaine on a train to Ukraine went viral after a video surfaced of the French President picking up white tissue from a table.
The Russian foreign ministry penned a diatribe on social media site Telegram (which has 950 million monthly users) claiming the video was evidence the premiers were drug addicts and American radio host Alex Jones (4.4 million followers on X) wrote: 'Zelensky, known cocaine enthusiast, had just hosted them. The 'leaders' look completely cracked out.'
And so many millions fell for the lie that the French government's X account posted a close-up of the photo, saying: 'This is a tissue. For blowing your nose.'
It's not a one-off. Last month grainy CCTV footage went viral on TikTok (1.58 billion monthly users) purportedly showing Starmer in a passionate embrace with Labour donor Lord Alli.
The AI-generated fake garnered more than four million views on X and was widely shared by far-right accounts with some adding a voiceover that called it 'a perfect metaphor for the kind of performative, backroom-dealing politics that both Starmer and Alli embody.'
We live in truly dangerous times. Especially after Twitter descended into a disinformation tool for the planet's richest conspiracy theorist, Elon Musk.
Just when we need to be more guarded against the spread of fake news, the world's most powerfully elected democratic leader is one of the worst offenders. Ironically on a platform called Truth Central. Donald Trump has declared war on the traditional media because we ask too many questions and expose too many lies.
Which can seem funny, until you see globally respected news organisations like Associated Press being excluded from White House briefings for refusing to rename the Gulf of Mexico in Trump's preferred style and MAGA fanboy bloggers given access to the president ahead of established media.
Sadly, with the rapid development of AI, and the growing appeal of Populist leaders who gain in strength by distorting reality, fake news is about to become turbocharged. Wicked whispers will increasingly be perceived as the truth.
Which is why democracy needs its traditional, mainstream media more than ever. Because without it, we'll be living in the Wild West. And the ones calling the shots will be the cowboys.
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