Jimmy Wales: Fake news “a quantum leap we should be very concerned about”

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Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales speaking at Westminster Media Forum, April 2018. Credit: Daniel Bruce

“The advertising-only business model has been incredibly destructive for journalism,” said Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales at a Westminster Media Forum event on Thursday 26 April 2018 in London that looked at “fake news”.

“We need to resolve the incentives so that it makes sense and is financially sustainable to do good news,” Wales added.

Wales cited examples of false news stories that had been published on the Mail Online, such as an article featuring a projection of a perfect horizon in Beijing, erected as a way to compensate for the pollution, which proved fake, and a story claiming the Pope supported Donald Trump. He said the Daily Mail of 20 years ago was different. While not what he would choose to read, he thinks there is a place in the media landscape for tabloids, but one running fake news is “a quantum leap we should be very concerned about”.

Suggesting alternatives to advertising-only models, Wales said the Guardian’s donation request box (which he admitted he had consulted on) was an excellent example of how a media organisation can earn money without compromising standards. Meanwhile, a total paywall was very beneficial for some media, in particular financial media, with those readers valuing inside knowledge on the markets, though it would not suit all (the Guardian’s Snowden files, for example, were information he said he would want everyone to be able to access at the same time).

Wales’s concerns about the advertising-only, clickbait-style media models were echoed by others throughout the conference. Drawing an impressive panel of industry experts across media, law and tech, they all united in the view that while fake news meant a myriad of things to many different people, and was not something new, it was nevertheless problematic. Mark Borkowski, founder and head of Borkowski PR, spoke of the 19th-century great moon hoax and how “everything is different and everything is the same” before adding: “The speed at which we expect to get information, without proper fact-checking, is a plague.”

Nic Newman from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism proposed different ways for media to gain more trust, of which “slowing down” was one. Richard Sambrook, former director of global news at the BBC and now director of the Centre for Journalism at Cardiff University, said the rise in the number of opinion pieces over evidenced-based journalism was because they were cheaper to commission.

Better education about what constitutes good quality, reliable media was another solution proposed.  

“Audiences need better education and sensitivity around algorithms,” said Kathryn Geels, from Digital Catapult.

Katie Lloyd, who is development director at the BBC’s School Report and who runs workshops around the country educating school children into news literacy, said there was a sense of urgency and confusion when it came to the topic and that teachers feel like it really needs to be taught.

“Young people are on the one hand savvy and on the other not so much and need extra help,” said Lloyd, adding that of those children she had interacted with, most knew what fake news was in principle, but not how to spot it.

“When we started talking to teachers they said they didn’t have the tools and the skills to teach it,” she added, tapping into a point raised by head of home news and deputy head of newsgathering at Sky, Sarah Whitehead, who said media education was just as important for older people as it was for the young, as the world of online was not the domain of only one group.  

Lloyd also explained that diversity was essential when it came to who was delivering news as people were more likely to trust news from those they could relate to. This was in response to an audience member saying they had spoken to school children who expressed that they respected news on Vice over the BBC. Lloyd agreed that it was essential for news organisations to have a wide range of people in terms of age and background. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1524822984082-ad9d065c-d104-5″ taxonomies=”6564″][/vc_column][/vc_row]

UK: Broadcasters win legal fight over Dale Farm footage

A number of UK broadcasters have won a judicial review overturning a decision that had forced them to hand over video footage of October’s Dale Farm evictions to Essex Police. ITN, the BBC, Sky, Hardcash Productions and the National Union of Journalists had appealed a decision by Chelmsford Crown Court to grant a production order to present unbroadcasted footage of the controversial evictions to the police. Today Mr Justice Eady and Lord Justice Moses overturned the judgement in a landmark decision, which NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet said was a “huge victory for the cause of press freedom”.

Once Murdoch owns BSkyB outright there will be no stopping him

Will the world change if, as we may be told any moment, Rupert Murdoch is cleared to buy the whole of BSkyB? After all, he already controls the company as the dominant shareholder. So should we care if the government allows him to consolidate that control, especially if some arrangement is found to prevent him turning Sky News into Fox TV?

It matters because for Murdoch this is like stepping on an escalator that will move him steadily and without a pause to a position of far greater and broader control of our media. BSkyB will deliver him large amounts of cash year after year for the foreseeable future, and will enable him to outbid everybody for everything.

We know his domineering tendency from the world of sport. He has bought cricket and Premiership football, for example. No one can compete at auction with the prices he is prepared to pay, and the sports themselves can’t resist what he gives them. The result is no doubt good coverage where his executives choose to deliver it, but these sports are steadily ceasing to be public activities and instead becoming branches of his empire. His people decide on which days matches are played, and at what time they kick off. His employees have a great say in making stars and don’t care about bit-part players (look at the state of lower-division football). And fewer people see these sports because Sky is expensive — far, far more people saw the Ashes won on free-to-air terrestrial television in 2005 than on Sky in 2009.

But sport is just the start. Sky Atlantic shows us that Murdoch is also determined to monopolise big-budget television drama. He has bought (no one can compete) Mad Men, The Sopranos, Treme, Six Feet Under, Boardwalk Empire, Game of Thrones and many more. And he has also just bought Shine Group, the company behind Life on Mars, Spooks and Hustle.

The key to this growing dominance has been cash, and BSkyB will give him more and more of it. Murdoch talks about markets and want us to think he is out there competing, but competition is the last thing on his mind: he likes to own the market and in this country he is being allowed to buy it in big slices  in a way that amazes foreigners. Even more amazingly, people in government take seriously his complaints that the BBC is in his way, and are prepared to meddle with the corporation accordingly.

So he just buys everything, and if you want to watch it you have to pay, say, £45 a month to see it at the moment. The more he buys, the less there is elsewhere, the more you are obliged to watch Sky to see half-decent television and the more he can charge. And the BSkyB cash will help enormously.

Even if he was an ethical operator with an established record of transparent and fair dealing in public life we would be extremely foolish to allow him to step on that escalator. He is none of those things. He is a sinister and ruthless businessman with hard-right political views who treats British politics and public life with contempt. Go here and do what you can to stop him. And/or be ready to join a demonstration.

Brian Cathcart teaches journalism at Kingston University London. He Tweets at @BrianCathcart

 

Once Murdoch owns BSkyB outright there will be no stopping him

Will the world change if, as we may be told any moment, Rupert Murdoch is cleared to buy the whole of BSkyB? After all, he already controls the company as the dominant shareholder. So should we care if the government allows him to consolidate that control, especially if some arrangement is found to prevent him turning Sky News into Fox TV?

It matters because for Murdoch this is like stepping on an escalator that will move him steadily and without a pause to a position of far greater and broader control of our media. BSkyB will deliver him large amounts of cash year after year for the foreseeable future, and will enable him to outbid everybody for everything.

We know his domineering tendency from the world of sport. He has bought cricket and Premiership football, for example. No one can compete at auction with the prices he is prepared to pay, and the sports themselves can’t resist what he gives them. The result is no doubt good coverage where his executives choose to deliver it, but these sports are steadily ceasing to be public activities and instead becoming branches of his empire. His people decide on which days matches are played, and at what time they kick off. His employees have a great say in making stars and don’t care about bit-part players (look at the state of lower-division football). And fewer people see these sports because Sky is expensive — far, far more people saw the Ashes won on free-to-air terrestrial television in 2005 than on Sky in 2009.

But sport is just the start. Sky Atlantic shows us that Murdoch is also determined to monopolise big-budget television drama. He has bought (no one can compete) Mad Men, The Sopranos, Treme, Six Feet Under, Boardwalk Empire, Game of Thrones and many more. And he has also just bought Shine Group, the company behind Life on Mars, Spooks and Hustle.

The key to this growing dominance has been cash, and BSkyB will give him more and more of it. Murdoch talks about markets and want us to think he is out there competing, but competition is the last thing on his mind: he likes to own the market and in this country he is being allowed to buy it in big slices  in a way that amazes foreigners. Even more amazingly, people in government take seriously his complaints that the BBC is in his way, and are prepared to meddle with the corporation accordingly.

So he just buys everything, and if you want to watch it you have to pay, say, £45 a month to see it at the moment. The more he buys, the less there is elsewhere, the more you are obliged to watch Sky to see half-decent television and the more he can charge. And the BSkyB cash will help enormously.

Even if he was an ethical operator with an established record of transparent and fair dealing in public life we would be extremely foolish to allow him to step on that escalator. He is none of those things. He is a sinister and ruthless businessman with hard-right political views who treats British politics and public life with contempt. Go here and do what you can to stop him. And/or be ready to join a demonstration.

Brian Cathcart teaches journalism at Kingston University London. He Tweets at @BrianCathcart