Truth vs fake news

The latest buzzwords “fake news” are fast becoming misnomer. They had been loosely being attributed to false reports coming out both from mainstream and social media. It all started when unscrupulous netizens, or trolls hiding their true identities, imitated legitimate news coming out from the mainstream media.

The “fake news” gathers steam as this is shared and being spread through the social media by gullible people without first checking its veracity. This starts the chain reaction until the “fake news” takes a life of its own.

In the old parlance of us mainstream journalists, we call it “kuryente” to dramatize the kilovolts of shock to a reporter who believes a false information, then writes about it and it comes out in the front page of the newspapers, or aired in radio and TV.

However, unlike the “fake news” coming out in the social media, the “kuryente” was not intentional and the reporter was an unwitting victim of a bum steer. For that, the reporter gets a memo from his or her editor. The wrongful reportage is corrected the next day in the newspaper, or aired immediately with corresponding apology.

For us at The Star, we uphold our slogan “Truth Shall Prevail.”

The “fake news” hounding the social media is far more malicious and sinister, if not dangerous and malevolent.  There are trolls who are even highly paid to do and spread the “fake news,” targeting specific individuals or entities. And even us in the mainstream and columnists are specific targets of these nefarious operators of “fake news” in the internet.

Much worse, certain government officials have been accused as sources of “fake news” that victimized the mainstream media. More recent example was how Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II passed on an information during a press conference at his office that were naturally reported by the mainstream media. He accused opposition Senators Antonio Trillanes IV and Paolo Benigno Aquino IV of allegedly meeting with the Lucman and Alonto clans in Marawi weeks before terrorists attacked the city.

The justice chief later on retracted and blamed the media for purportedly misquoting him for the “fake news” against the two Senators.

Through the years, the social media in the Philippines have become a battleground also for many politicians who found it as a wider, quicker, and much cheaper mode to reach more audience. But now they realize it is biting them back.

During our weekly Kapihan sa Manila Bay last Wednesday, Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) Secretary Martin Andanar accurately cited legitimate mainstream media members have adhered to journalistic standards and accountability compared to social media practitioners and bloggers.

“First, we should separate the grain from the chaff (sic),” Andanar pointed out.

Ironically, the PCOO itself had earlier come under fire for allegedly spreading “fake news” in official government sites. The Philippine News Agency (PNA), which is under the PCOO, recently drew flaks for using a Vietnam War photo in a story about the ongoing military operations against the Maute siege in Marawi City. Newly appointed PCOO assistant secretary and known Duterte campaign supporter Mocha Uson was also skewered for using a photo of the Honduras police in a social network post urging the public to pray for Filipino troopers in the strife-torn Marawi.

A former member of media himself, Andanar could only smile and offered no excuses. He promised though safeguards were immediately undertaken to prevent a repeat of the same.

Shit happens. We can take that. But for a government information machinery, it cannot afford such huge, grave mistake in the discharge of its public service functions.

Offhand, Andanar is openly supportive to the twin moves at the Senate to ensure some form of regulation over the overly licentious social media.

Trillanes, a bitter critic of the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte, called for an inquiry on the proliferation of ‘fake news “in the Internet. Trillanes filed Senate Resolution No. 259 which sought to look into the spread of false information and the emergence of “social media trolls.” Under Trillanes’ bill, it defined trolls as those who deliberately create or foments discord and conflict on social media sites through the posting of controversial and inflammatory messages.

For his part, administration ally Sen. Joel Villanueva filed Senate Bill No. 1492 titled “An Act Penalizing the Malicious Distribution of False News and Other Related Violations.” SB 1492 proposed to fine from P10 million to P20 million any mass media enterprises or social media platforms that fail, neglect, or refuse to remove false news. Once passed into law, the violators will also face imprisonment from 10 years to 20 years.

Under Villanueva’s bill, false news or information are defined as those either intending to cause panic, division, chaos, violence, and hate, or those which exhibit a propaganda to blacken, or discredit one’s reputation.

There is a problem though with Villanueva’s all encompassing bill to include mainstream media. The legitimate media is subject to libel laws and self-regulatory bodies to check against abuses or excesses. It is important to distinguish between legitimate media organizations and fake news sites in the social media that patently peddles false information.

The advent of the social media has given every Tom, Dick and Harry access to information, the power of which unfortunately most of them do not fully comprehend. As the popular Hollywood line of Spiderman: “With powers, comes great responsibility.”

There is one job though the PCOO chief can immediately act on without waiting for Congress. Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III who is in Australia to watch the fight of Senator Manny Pacquiao against Australian Jeff Horn caught a report about martial law in the Philippines last Friday while watching TV news in Brisbane. According to Sotto, the news report aired at past five in the afternoon on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation or ABC, shocked him because it allegedly claimed that President Duterte declared martial law in order to jail the members of the political opposition citing the case of Senator Leila De Lima.

It should be an easy job to pitch for truth versus fake news. But in the ABC case, it was plain untruthful reporting.