I was a little surprised at a comment by David Frum on a CBC panel show the other night. They were discussing Fake News, Steve Bannon, and other events, mostly about the United States. The past weeks have had bombs, shootings and the Attack of the Caravans making US headlines. The panelists also touched on what we Canucks could and should do to stop from falling into the same media melee as is taking place south of our border. Alas, some of the disease is already seeping north.
What caught my attention was Frum’s (born in Canada, works mostly in the US) assertion that most people do not get their news from newspapers or television news. They get it from Facebook and YouTube. Newspapers used to send reporters out into the world to report on events but television ate away at that method and now hand-held cellphone videos are the reporting tool of the day. Snippets of news are twittered on the fly as events unfold. Even diplomacy and foreign policy are tweeted by Heads of State as ambassadors wonder how to keep up with events that surprise them as much as it does TV anchors and news editors.
The US Prez is forever ranting about Fake News – that is all news that is not reported on Fox TV News – as being Fake News. The scary thing is that so many people do not believe this “Fake News” because it is often reinforced as false on social media. Whom do Americans believe: CNN, CBS, ABC, The New York Times, or Fox? David Frum says that so far we are okay here in Canada because we have the CBC that tries to keep political bias out of their newscasts.
If Fake News doesn’t cloud the issue enough we have people writing ‘opinion’ pieces, like this one, who have interpreted the news with their own personal filters and biases. Social media, in one form or another, offers a platform for these views and opens them up for comment. This is all under the guise of free speech and the right to express yourself – within the limits of libel, defamation, and good taste. Proper spelling is not a requirement, as the spell-checkers will correct you. The problem soon arises that as we mix fact and fiction, opinions and real events, we end up being misinformed with what truly is Fake News.
This was brought home to me in a recent conversation with the President of the Battalion. He was lamenting that comments on social media too often cast the Battalion in a bad light. The Summer in the Park drew comments about the concession sales at the Gardens, and without any facts, people were making comments. During the latest electioneering, the cost overruns at the Gardens was a topic, again without supported facts, linking the Battalion to the issue. The problem seemed to be that myths and rumours, repeated often enough, become facts in some people’s minds.
I suggested that even although the contract signed between the City and the Battalion was a confidential matter, a little more transparency might have helped clear the air of these myths. Maybe. Like, he said, how many of us know that the Battalion has so far pumped 2.4 million dollars into the City? And that’s without that mythical X7 factor the bureaucrats at City Hall are applying to Summer In the Park. (Okay – that’s just a rumour, but what is the delay?)
Oh well – we have been promised more openness and transparency from Council. It was in that Baylor Report. Just saying.
