Culture

La valeur des fake news

Apr 30, 2019 Josh Friedman

NEW YORK – Lors d’un déplacement en Éthiopie dans les années 1990, j’ai rencontré le Premier ministre Meles Zenawi pour tenter de le convaincre de cesser d’emprisonner des journalistes. Les guérillas de Meles avaient renversé une dictature soviétique répressive quelques années auparavant, et une multitude de petits journaux extravagants, aux informations parfois totalement inexactes, étaient depuis apparus, dont beaucoup s’attaquaient directement à Meles. L’homme d’État avait riposté en introduisant plusieurs lois créant des poursuites pénales contre ce qu’il qualifiait d’« insultes » au gouvernement, en imposant des amendes voir des peines d’emprisonnement pour les journalistes ayant formulé des inexactitudes. C’est ainsi que l’Éthiopie était rapidement devenue l’une des principales prisons de journalistes de la planète.

Aujourd’hui, en présence du nouveau Premier ministre réformiste Abiy Ahmed, aux fonctions depuis seulement un an, l’Éthiopie a accompli tant de progrès dans la libération des journalistes incarcérés, et dans la levée des contrôles sur la presse, que le pays accueille cette année la Journée mondiale de la liberté de la presse.

Mais il est encore trop tôt pour les célébrations. Certains organes de cette presse nouvellement libérée publient parfois de fausses informations – attisant les tensions ethniques, tribales, et s’attaquant à Abiy. À l’approche des premières élections libres depuis 15 ans dans le pays, qui auront lieu l’année prochaine, Abiy se retrouve dans la même situation que Meles autrefois, et envisage ainsi de rétablir certains contrôles sur la presse, qu’il avait pourtant abolis.

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j. von Hettlingen May 2, 2019

Josh Friedman recalls his experience with leaders in fledgling democracies who believed journalists, “must be constrained by the state until they are able to carry out their work responsibly.” Most often they were hypersensitive to criticism, and in some cases inaccurate reporting was the cause of outrage. Instead of cracking down on journalists, and introducing laws that criminalise “insults” to powerholders and fine and jail journalists for “inaccuracies,” they should help accelerate the development of a “credible free press.” Any restriction impedes its development.
The author says the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia justified his government’s actions, putting the blame on their journalists who were not as “professional like those in the United States and Western Europe....They do not know how to report the news accurately. We must set guidelines for them until they learn how to do their jobs.” This was a blatant attempt to muzzle journalists and bring them into line with government policies. China has its own “guideline” on what domestic and foreign journalists are allowed to do in the country.
What would Meles think of “fake news” if he were still alive today? He would “rail against” it, the author says. Fake news is information completely made up, manipulated to resemble credible journalism, with the intention to attract maximum attention. It aims to deceive and mislead others into believing falsehoods or doubting verifiable facts. The label can be misused by repressive regimes to erode confidence in journalism, allowing them to spread disinformation, which is false and deliberately created to do harm, and misinformation, which is false, but not created with the intention of causing harm.
Since 2016 fake news had become a catch-all term to discredit all kinds of stories. Polls showed that during the presidential campaigns, many Americans, especially Trump supporters, were not smart at detecting outright fabrication, like the “Pizzagate” – an allegation about Hillary Clinton running a child sex ring. The story about Democratic senators wanting to impose Sharia law in Florida was tweeted by Michael Flynn. And Trump repeated some of the fake news reports himself.
One wonders how such stories could stretch the boundaries of belief – but a lot of fake news does, and people think it is true. Compelling to click on, and with a “truthiness” quality to them, some stories soar on social media, where links are seen as credible regardless of source. Analysts said fake news stories drew more shares and engagement during the final months of the campaign than reports from the likes of the New York Times, the Washington Post and CNN. Initially Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, pooh-poohed the notion that fake news travelling on his network could have swung the election.
The author says, there is “no shortcut to a vibrant free press; it takes a long period of trial and error for the norms and institutions of professional journalism to develop.” He points out how the development in France and the US had been marked by progress and regress in the last 200 years in history.
It took John Adams and his Federalists, “who denounced a free and enthusiastic press that disseminated criticism – both accurate and inaccurate – of the new country’s politicians,” and Thomas Jefferson and his Democratic-Republicans’ pushback against the Federalists, “both in Congress and the courts” to pave the way “for the American press to experiment, thereby developing.....a culture of deep and accurate reporting, including consistent fact-checking.”
France was an el dorado for journalism in the aftermath of the French Revolution in 1789. There were 1300 newspapers across the country. When Napoleon took power a decade later, the number of newspapers began to fall. In 1811, in Paris alone, it fell from 150 to 4.
Russia saw a similar trend after the 1917 Revolution. Yet “guidelines” were introduced to curb “aggressive and critical reporting.” Today, Putin’s Russia penalises journalists for spreading “fake news” and disrespecting the state. China and Turkey have the world’s highest number of jailed journalists. Trump hates journalists critical of him. He would be delighted to have the same power as Putin or Erdogan to trample on the First Amendment in the US.
Meanwhile the author urges liberal-democratic politicians to “trust the process – and maintain a thick skin,” because repressive media laws are counterproductive. They “may benefit leaders in the short run, in the long run, they stunt the development of a country’s press.” As long as a country has a robust civil society and strong institutions, the Fourth Estate will survive disruptive politics and leaders, because a disruption is often transient.
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Godfree Roberts Apr 30, 2019

Journalists who aid and abet war–which is most Western journalists–should be jailed under international human rights laws. At the very least, all journalists should comply with Singapore's common sense media laws.

As for calling China an Olympic-level jailers of journalists, it's nonsense. I doubt if there's one journalist in a Chinese jail.

And (clue1) China has the most trusted media on earth, even more trusted than Singapore's.
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