2016 was the year in which fake news, spread by poor quality media sources, became a global concern. But what studies can you do to accurately, honestly tell you which big newspapers are truly lacking in journalistic standards?

 

A good standard of journalism, for instance, will always look for two sources, or one certain source, before confirming a story because human bias is so pervasive and problematic. Bad journalism will print whatever they can find which proves their own biases or tells readers what they want to hear. But how do you check which papers actually have this kind of quality journalism?

 

Well, the surprising answer is by using sports journalism, specifically football/soccer transfer rumours. These are a big thing in British media, and every major newspaper indulges daily transfer news. What’s more, you can judge the accuracy of this kind of news very easily: you can look back in a few months and judge whether each piece of news was true or false, because the player either will or won’t have transferred.

 

Because transfers involve human characters – players, agents, managers, families – you can’t ever expect to be 100% accurate, but you can analyse to see if some news sources are doing a lot better than others. And the results – from a BBC study of their own daily column of collated ‘transfer rumours’ – provide evidence which back three important points which I have been making for a while.

 

 

Fig 1.

Which is the most reliable media source?

Percentage of reported deals that did happen

*Only includes sources which featured 10 or more times

 

The first point, as the above chart shows, is that the Guardian has journalistic integrity which is wrongly deemed as ‘left-wing bias’. They don’t print false news, they check facts, and they hold people in the public eye to account when they are wrong. Telling the truth is deemed a political choice, and as a result, the Guardian are labelled left-wing. However, on matters where there is no right/left wing, like in sport, you can see that it is about something more than political choices – it’s about honesty.

 

As you will note, the Guardian leads the field, ahead of even the popular sports-specialist sources, which are famed for their sports journalism and specialist networks, such as Goal and Sky Sports.

 

 

Fig 2.

Which daily newspaper is the most accurate?

*Only includes sources featured more than 10 times

 

The second thing of note is the other side of the story. Despite being one of the most popular newspapers in the world – with click-bait figures to match the best – the Mail gets the facts right less than half of the time. That is less successful than flipping a coin (which you would still have a couple of if you didn’t buy this particular paper).

 

You will note that the BBC, in its ever ‘neutral’ position, fails to include the rest of the click-bait tabloids, but you can bet papers like The Sun would be here if they had managed to get above the Mail, and you will note their conspicuous absence.

 

A final point to note is that this kind of study should question what we deem as ‘press neutrality’. The BBC is one of the most widely read and trusted media sources in the world. The longer it pretends that it and other media sources are all the same, and simply a matter of personal taste – regardless of how little emphasis other sources place on fact-checking and honesty – the longer it will be silently contributing to that lie.

 

It is a political stance to decide not to criticise poor journalistic standards, as we know certain standards lead to better, more accurate and more honest news. And, as we are all aware, the BBC should not take political stances, it should take only rational, independent stances of integrity. If the BBC will not investigate and report facts like this, how is it neutral?

The things that happened in 2016 are not irreversible, nor are they catastrophic, but they did see humankind begin a remarkable and almost universal descent from the reason and intelligence which we have spent centuries improving upon. That computer you’re reading this on, the clothes you’re wearing, the house you sat in…all of it came from the progression of enlightenment values which allowed science to improve society.

 

This year we became suspicious of those values and decided – perhaps without realising – that these values were over-rated. So we used the technology it gave us to voice our support for right-wing politicians who decried it, in what can only be described as some ironic political choices.

 

Whether it be Brexit, Donald Trump’s march to president-elect, or the rise of right-wing populism across Europe, 2016 has seen a turn away from the values of the enlightenment. Why?

 

The popular explanation for why people turned to Trump, Farage, Le Pen and their associates, is mainly economic. The media tell us that people are ‘fed up’ with the status quo. It’s difficult to tease out exactly what people are ‘fed up’ with, but there are two main theories.

 

 

Politicians.

 

Especially in Trump’s case, people appear to be annoyed with classic politicians. Yet, it’s not clear why. People with little or no interest in politics, which appears to be the norm, believe there is no difference between left and right parties, and thus believe all politicians are as bad each other. But this, itself, is a myth created by a media who don’t know how to analyse claims and present policies. So of course they ‘seem’ the same to the people reading this media.

 

In 2015, the UK were offered a choice between a Labour party who said they would dramatically change the media – take on the media barons who only present news which furthers their own interests – and begin to distribute wealth more equally. Whilst the Tory party offered no such promises, but instead spoke about tax cuts for the rich, again, and cloaked these less popular policies in a promise for a referendum for leaving the EU. These policies couldn’t be more different; they are at opposite sides of the spectrum, people fighting for completely opposite beliefs and values. To paint them as ‘all the same’ is like painting black as white. Our hatred of politicians is entirely created by our poor forms of click-bait media, who see no value in providing real political news so much as populist scare-mongering.

 

The US were offered a similar, vastly different choice. Hilary may have been right-wing by UK standards, but Trump is verging on fascistic. Mocking the disabled, promising to overturn human rights progress such as on abortion of climate change, and offering absolutely no method of distributing the unfair inequality of wealth which poor and middle class Americans have suffered over the past 30 years. Rarely, in fact, does life present us with such different choices. That we see them as ‘all the same’ should be a warning sign that something is wrong in how we get our news.

 

 

Inequality

 

Which of course, brings us to the second theory of why people are ‘fed up’: inequality. Politicians on both sides of the political spectrum have promised that the lower and middle classes will be ‘dragged up’ over the last few decades, and nothing of the sort has happened. We’ve all felt it, and academics such as Thomas Piketty have proved it with all manner of statistical breakthroughs that show our current economic policies are vastly unfair, counter-productive and generally not fit for purpose.

 

However the economists who have worked hard to investigate this also came to very clear conclusions: the reason why inequality has grown much bigger than ever before is because our trickle down economic policy – that which Conservative and Republican thought is based upon – is deeply, rationally flawed, and is entirely causing the increase in equality.

 

This is important: these studies do not show that Conservative economic though is just contributing to inequality, they show it is entirely causing inequality. Piketty’s work, in particular, has been so ground-breaking, influencing the economics community so greatly, that it is being made into a feature film. How many feature films do you know that talk about modern economic theorists? Yet do you know his name? Do you hear this economic consensus in the media? Or do they tell you of the opposite; that Conservative economic policy is sensible, and that those wish to change it – such as Corbyn in the UK – are weak, crack pots who would run the country into the ground? Can you hear those alarm bells ringing again?

 

Conservatives always defend trickle down economics. Of course they do, their entire party is built upon this argument; people would not vote for policies which only benefit the minority (millionaires), so the Conservatives need to be able to argue that it is economically counter-productive to vote otherwise. They argue, for instance, that it is better to ‘drag up’ the poor, rather than ‘dragging down’ the rich with higher taxes. This is a fine argument, but evidence now shows it is entirely incorrect. If you create more and more wealth at the top, even slight increases at the bottom will be off-set by inflation. So as the price of goods – like bread, or bigger buys like houses – rise faster than the wages at the bottom, the poorest actually become poorer. The media report this as ‘growing’ wages for the poor, but, of course, it’s nothing of the sort if inflation has decrease the value of money this way. Trickle-down economics is a provable, obvious myth. That our media doesn’t report this is a travesty. If we were concerned about inequality, and wanting to do something about it, we would always vote against Conservative or Republican economic policy. There is absolutely no doubt about that.

 

 

So why are we really ‘fed up’ and choosing desperate political representation?

 

The media’s inability or else unwillingness to talk about the great thinkers of our time – the great advances of our time – mean our political decisions are increasingly ill-informed and unfit for purpose. Whereas previously human beings embraced enlightenment values – truth, science, progress, technological advancement – we now ignore it, and look inwards instead. We gang up on ‘foreigners’, ‘politicians’ or other irrational ‘group-think’ ideas instead.

 

In the US this means we now have a president dedicated to ignoring climate change, reversing women’s rights, destroying black communities, increasing economic inequality and appointing billionaires to create policy and help the rich to get richer.

 

In the UK, it means that we think all of our politicians are equally bad, and thus that a strong, business-like Conservative party are better than a ‘weak’, ‘lunatic’ Labour party. And, more to the point, we are taught to think that foreigners – by creating crowding, stealing our jobs and stealing public services – are the reason why things aren’t working, rather than looking at the evidence and seeing why things are actually getting worse.

 

All of the evidence points to the problem being our economic favouring of the rich. Yet it is ignored constantly. Why? Because the media is largely run by the wealthy, who lobby governments, and who won’t spread economic developments, or breakthroughs in thought, if these breakthrough oppose the interests of the rich owners. And with important issues like this, they do.

 

This is not rocket science, or any kind of conspiracy theory, it’s basic human nature rearing it’s head in the media: if you pay someone to go and find out what is happening across town, but their ability to get paid depends on them giving you a certain answer, you will get that answer – regardless of its truth – 9 times out of 10. From 9 people out of 10. That 1 person who will give you the right answer will look like they are in the wrong, and the consensus will be faked in the favour of the lie by the other 9. This is what is happening in our media, and it’s making most of us poorer, withholding opportunities from our children, and gradually turning us back to the dark ages.

 

There are ways out: support that 1 in 10 media source – those owned not by billionaires, but by committees who have charters of truth to work to. Avoid, as far as you can, clicking on the ‘bait’ offered by sites like ‘mail online’, or buying the Daily Mail, the Sun, or any gutter press like it. If you want celebrity stories, buy glossy magazines instead – they don’t claim to be telling you the daily news, at least.

 

Read papers or apps like The Guardian. They are labelled a ‘left wing’ paper, but realistically they print different stories, or different perspectives, because they are obligated to tell the truth and not just sell papers. These are the 1 in 10. They have to indulge journalistic integrity like fact and source checking, as well as covering important topics. As a result, it is no surprise to see regular articles and mentions about Piketty in The Guardian, and regular stories about bias and ignorance of evidence within the wider press.

 

Make it your new year’s resolution to be part of the solution; this system can’t continue without our support. We must wean ourselves off it.

As you drive to work, you likely listen to your radio, and hear songs written by well-known singer songwriters. When you arrive, maybe you check social media and learn the newest trending stories. When you go home, you watch the latest reality TV, punctuated by trailers for the next Hollywood blockbuster. This is real life; I didn’t write this article to try and convince you that we’re all living in the matrix.

Yet whilst there is an outcry that fake news – which is full of lies about whoever is paying for it, in order to increase the popularity of their opinions – is unduly influencing our opinions, it’s nothing new. Our lives have been ruled by fake, sterilely polished and unachievably aspirational media for as long as I can remember.

Remember those reality TV shows you watch? Young, beautiful people, often wealthy beyond your wildest dreams, living lives where nothing matters except the next night out or the next date? That shouldn’t be interesting, but it is, because we believe it’s possible for us to live like that: care free, hedonistic , a new definition of ‘idyllic’. It absolutely isn’t possible for us to live like that, though, and that we are glued to our TV screens watching other people live it stops us from being truly angry about our inability to do so. Rich, beautiful people are given status well beyond what they earn because we consume the media which justifies their doing so. We’re looking at them and saying ‘that’s okay’.

How about the current big thing, singing songs on the radio about heartbreak. Strumming their guitar or caressing their piano as they sing tales which touch our hearts. It sounds so authentic, until you realise these were written by six people searching for rhyming words in some mansion, tested on focus groups for buzz words and potential, before being polished so perfectly in a recording studio where even my voice could be made to sound angelic. They are then thrust into eye-wateringly expensive marketing campaigns, so they show up all over your newsfeeds (just like that fake news we’re all so angry about), and pushed to every major radio station so you hear it enough times that you like it (that is, unless it was written to be immediately catchy, and thus need less marketing spend on it).

And those movies you watch – most of the money doesn’t go on scripts, or casting, but on buying the most famous faces to star in it, and the most expensive explosions and/or marketing so as to ensure it sells tickets.

This isn’t a conspiracy, but rather how media works in a world where markets rule. Authenticity and genuine talent is obscured by companies who know how to trick you into seeing talent and authenticity, using whatever resources that are currently to hand. This is how the world looks when independent media is dying out, and when handfuls of big companies own the means to create media, as well as the means to market it.

The philosophy of aesthetics asks that we question ‘what truly is art?’ Does authenticity and talent really matter, or are we mostly interested in the pure pleasure of the end product, and so happy to live with the deception? That’s not for me to answer. It’s a subjective thing that we each must ask ourselves. However shouldn’t we be given the choice to ask it of ourselves? Shouldn’t some media source, somewhere, be giving us the resources to see what authentic and talented musicians and film-makers actually sound and look like? We haven’t opted in to this system, as far as I can tell, and that’s important; you wouldn’t accept if you were forced to watch the Evangelist Christian TV channel all day, so why do you accept that you’re given such a limited, market-led scope of media?

Our ‘fake lives’ are an entirely acceptable way for us to choose to live. But we have to be given the choice in order for it to be right.

Whilst I am far from being free of unauthentic media, I have learned a great deal about the range of talent that exists outside of what big companies want you to buy from them.  In particular, a wonderful record company called One Week Records, where the musician Joey Cape scours the US for singer-songwriters to live in his house for seven days, in which they write, perform, record and produce ten-song albums. It’s a beautiful idea; a solution for people who do long for authentic, genuine music.

My Christmas and end of year present to you is a song recorded during a One Week Records session. It is by a brilliant singer song-writer called Chris Cresswell.

When I hear the songwriters on the radio, it feels so forced: these perfect verses, matched seamlessly to a polished guitar playing underneath it, that seem to be written purely to make you feel sad/nostalgic, etc. There’s no building story or emotion, just catchy and…well, empty music. Which is why I love listening to this album. This song, ‘stitches’, builds from the beginning, and just erupts alongside the guitar toward the end. So much passion, energy and emotion. It doesn’t feel like you’re being sold an idea, it sounds like you’re listening to someone who has written something deeply meaningful and passionate. That, to me, is art; not written to make you want to buy it, or to hook you from the opening sentence. This is real music and I love it. I guess I took the red pill, and whilst I’m far from enlightened, I feel better for it. Enjoy a taste of freedom.