Campaign for Press and Brodcasting Freedom Stop Murdoch Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom & GMB | Page 7

More rush
to probe
‘fake
news’
TWO HIGH-LEVEL investigations
have been set up to analyse the
phenomenon called “fake news”,
in the wake of the moral panic
that followed the triumph of
Donald Trump in the US presiden-
tial election.
Fake news is the production of
untrue reporting by people other
than commercial media, who
after decades of experience do it
more professionally. It invariably
appears on the internet, which
being open to everybody is self-
evidently suspect.
The UK Parliament’s Culture,
Media and Sport Committee
has launched a probe into the
“widespread dissemination, through
social media and the internet, and
acceptance as fact of stories of
uncertain provenance or accuracy”.
Explaining the reason for the
inquiry, the committee noted
concerns over people being fed
propaganda and untruths from non-
traditional news sources. Damian
Collins, chairman of the committee,
said the trend was “a threat
to democracy and undermines
confidence in the media in general”.
The Labour Party is conducting
a similar inquiry conducted by
Michael Dugher who was briefly
shadow culture secretary last
year. The probe will look into the
changing ways in which news is
consumed and shared online, and
what social media could do to tackle
fabricated news being shared.
Deputy leader Tom Watson,
who took over the culture brief,
said the increase in fake news
undermined politics. He said: “Fake
news challenges our democracy
by undermining the very basis on
which we make decisions about
who to trust and who to vote for. I
want this inquiry to make concrete
proposals to protect the integrity of
our news media.”
He said fake news was accessed
with more frequently than real
news in the run up to the recent US
presidential elections. “That cannot
[be] healthy for democracies, which
operate on the assumption that
voters make choices based on facts
and information that are for the
most part accurate and truthful.”
Beancounter who
now leads the Beeb
THE NEW Chairman of the BBC,
Sir David Clementi, invented his
own job when he was asked by
government to recommend a new
structure for the corporation.
He proposed replacing the
BBC Trust with a straightforward
management board and subjecting
this public service to the regulation
of Ofcom, whose remit until now
was competitive commercial media.
And so it came to pass. Clementi
takes charge on April 1. He is a
former deputy governor of the
Bank of England and chairman of
COST OF
A TWEET
FOOD BLOGGER Jack Monroe’s triumph
in her libel action against vile right-wing
rent-a-gob Katie Hopkins in March was not
just clearly the right thing to happen, but a
significant move in media law.
Hopkins had tweeted a snide and crude
message about Monroe, accusing her
entirely falsely of condoning the spraying
of offensive graffiti on a war memorial.
When challenged she refused to apologise
but instead insulted Monroe further, calling
her “social anthrax”.
Monroe was awarded £24,000 in
damages but legal costs will set Hopkins
back a six-figure sum.
The judge found that the tweets
had caused “serious harm”. It cou