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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/live/2016/dec/16/guardian-treat-fake-news-join-live-look
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| What are the best ways to cope in uncertain times? Join our live look at the week | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| 12.30pm GMT | |
| 12:30 | |
| Planet Earth is the therapy we need after a turbulent year | |
| John Still | |
| How we’ve needed Planet Earth II. David Attenborough’s latest jaw-dropping journey into the natural world has provided much-appreciated respite from what has been a turbulent 2016. | |
| Attenborough himself has noted that the show is a form of “two-way therapy” for those who “are reconnecting with a planet whose beauty is blemished”. Those restorative qualities are being widely embrace. Up to 10.6 million viewers have tuned in to witness, among other highlights, a flamingo parade, a nail-biting snake attack, and a bobcat faceplanting into snow which seemed to sum up how many of us have been feeling throughout this tumultuous year. | |
| Have you been watching? Where else have you turned for pop-culture solace in the most uncertain of times? Let us know in the comments below. | |
| 12.30pm GMT | |
| 12:30 | |
| Your views so far on fake news – you can click on the comments to get involved | |
| It's hard to know whether to ignore it or debunk it.Obviously a media outlet that does not report or comment on fake stories risks being ignored itself. Yet somehow in descending to that level, that source is sullied.It seems to me that intelligent people want to be free of garbage, they want a source they can trust, they want that source to make clear what is true reporting, what is evidence, what is opinion. A true paper of record.I would like to believe there is only a faithful readership for that kind of source, but it is essential to proper functioning of our democracy. | |
| Fake news is a nightmare, mainly because there is no such thing as fake news. Practically everything put out there has a small kernel of truth or at least an echo, or déjà vu of something heard or seen before. The fact is that there is no way to curtail the rampant distortions, misinformation and nonsense which pour out of the internet each micro-second. We opened the information dam to the whole world, and now we must live with the consequences. | |
| We can't tackle this by trying to plug or censor the sources, we have to deal with it at the receptor end. That means lifting educational and knowledge levels to the point where people don't just believe, don't click on crap and are savvy enough to be their own reliable filters. The internet has been unleashed onto a world population who are not capable of dealing with it in many ways. It's a massive task, but education is the only way to solve this. | |
| And who should fund this vast investment into world education? Why, the multi-nationals who make billions from technology and the net of course. | |
| There's a lot of confusion around this. Reporting what someone else has said, assuming they've actually said it, isn't fake news. | |
| Making up facts is fake news. | |
| Interpreting trends and events isn't fake news - it may be propaganda but it isn't fake. | |
| Cherry-picking from trends and events is fake news. | |
| A lot of the time, it seems BTL at least, readers are unable or unwilling to make distinctions between different journalistic styles. The classic example is the claim about WMD in Iraq. This was apparently false information but reporting on it - here at the gruan, anyway, wasn't fake news. | |
| Removing fake articles, correcting fake information, clearly differentiating investigative journalism from opinion pieces and so on is easily enough for readers of this newspaper to understand what is factually reliable and what is clearly an editorial line. | |
| 12.01pm GMT | 12.01pm GMT |
| 12:01 | 12:01 |
| How should the Guardian treat fake news? | How should the Guardian treat fake news? |
| Alan Evans | Alan Evans |
| The Sunday Times published an article claiming that students had been “told to use gender-neutral pronouns such as ‘ze’ rather than ‘he’ or ‘she’”. It was quickly reported almost verbatim by other outlets including the Huffington Post (since modified), Metro, the Independent and even Pink News. | The Sunday Times published an article claiming that students had been “told to use gender-neutral pronouns such as ‘ze’ rather than ‘he’ or ‘she’”. It was quickly reported almost verbatim by other outlets including the Huffington Post (since modified), Metro, the Independent and even Pink News. |
| It soon became clear that the story was at the very least an exaggeration. It had been written in vague terms, referring to “a students’ union leaflet” as the source of the claim, but the union quickly came out with a denial, saying that their advice had only ever been that people should identify their preferred pronoun when speaking at meetings. The Guardian reported on the OUSU statement and also published a comment piece by Jane Fae referring to the incident. | It soon became clear that the story was at the very least an exaggeration. It had been written in vague terms, referring to “a students’ union leaflet” as the source of the claim, but the union quickly came out with a denial, saying that their advice had only ever been that people should identify their preferred pronoun when speaking at meetings. The Guardian reported on the OUSU statement and also published a comment piece by Jane Fae referring to the incident. |
| In recent weeks, talk of “fake news” has been the subject of much media discussion, and it’s worth considering our options when a false or misleading story starts doing the rounds. | In recent weeks, talk of “fake news” has been the subject of much media discussion, and it’s worth considering our options when a false or misleading story starts doing the rounds. |
| • Should we take the high road and ignore it completely? Perhaps, but if it’s become a talking point, we may have a responsibility to our readers to report on it. | • Should we take the high road and ignore it completely? Perhaps, but if it’s become a talking point, we may have a responsibility to our readers to report on it. |
| • Or should we publish a Snopes-style debunking? They can be very useful, but if we took that approach every time we were confronted with false or exaggerated claims that would quickly take up all our resources, as well as risking unhelpfully bringing attention to things (cf Pizzagate). | • Or should we publish a Snopes-style debunking? They can be very useful, but if we took that approach every time we were confronted with false or exaggerated claims that would quickly take up all our resources, as well as risking unhelpfully bringing attention to things (cf Pizzagate). |
| • Another option is not to treat it as news and approach it through a comment piece or a Pass Notes, where it’s easier to explain the situation without giving it too much weight. | • Another option is not to treat it as news and approach it through a comment piece or a Pass Notes, where it’s easier to explain the situation without giving it too much weight. |
| Even more tricky is how to deal with stories that are only revealed as false much later on – for example, the Intercept reporter who months later admitted he had fabricated messages or Rolling Stone’s notorious A Rape on Campus story. The Guardian has also recently had to retract articles after sources said they had not spoken to the reporter who quoted them. | Even more tricky is how to deal with stories that are only revealed as false much later on – for example, the Intercept reporter who months later admitted he had fabricated messages or Rolling Stone’s notorious A Rape on Campus story. The Guardian has also recently had to retract articles after sources said they had not spoken to the reporter who quoted them. |
| From deliberately false stories to misleading exaggerations to honest mistakes, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer. I’d be interested to know how our readers feel about these stories and how they think the Guardian should treat “fake news” in its various forms. | From deliberately false stories to misleading exaggerations to honest mistakes, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer. I’d be interested to know how our readers feel about these stories and how they think the Guardian should treat “fake news” in its various forms. |
| 11.57am GMT | 11.57am GMT |
| 11:57 | 11:57 |
| Welcome everyone | Welcome everyone |
| Sarah Marsh | Sarah Marsh |
| Happy Friday and welcome to our weekly social, where we discuss the week’s best news and comment with readers. We have lots of great topics coming up today (join us from 12pm until around 4.30pm) – look forward to getting started. | Happy Friday and welcome to our weekly social, where we discuss the week’s best news and comment with readers. We have lots of great topics coming up today (join us from 12pm until around 4.30pm) – look forward to getting started. |