Understanding Fake News

Some of the Fake news last few days we all have spotted during the Covid crises:

1. Meerut Hospital screens out Muslim Covid Patients.
2. Gujarat Hospital segregates on Faith.
3. Children eating frogs due to lock down
4. Arunachal people eating snakes due to lock down.

And you can every week point to large number of reported incidents that are totally fake and provide a picture far removed from reality. Below are some more examples i attempted to list:

I don’t know much about Journalism like most people and went by the impression that reporters painstakingly went to report from remote corners and mostly it was truth that filtered out. While many still do and report painstakingly, i am convinced that reporting and fact collection have become a subset of narrative whichever side of the larger debate.

The moment that happens something suspect crops up in journalistic integrity and the ethic of reporting. I know there are superb, honest, painstaking and extremely capable editors and doyens of the Industry, but when major publications, main stream broadcast media and also those Institutions that are supposed to uphold journalistic credentials and ethic are compromised by narrative despite my own naivete of the profession it is obvious something is seriously wrong particularly with the very basics.

When we look at two versions of an event say a debate or warring between ideologically opposite entities, selective reporting of facts is often used to justify one side of the debate. Hence it is valid to ask what exactly do we ask of our accredited  Journalists particularly those who comment daily on happenings in India. Even Neutrality and Objectivity can be used subjectively. Bias at times over the years runs so deep that many journalists assume their objectivity and neutrality as above par are actually so far removed from reality. The shock of being reminded and exposed on their hypocrisy on Social Media surely hurts and it does not help them dismissing them being exposed as some “trolling”. It is not. That is exactly what Social media is and where its strength lies. What Main Stream Media could not unplug eg the biases in our narration and selection, ordinary citizens on SM platforms expose with ease.

Take the example of narrative being set by established media on lynchings. This narrative was and still is being set by completely ignoring cow smuggling, thefts, smuggling syndicates and direct attacks on people whose livelihood depends on cattle and very importantly those groups who traditionally consider them as revered and sacred. The narrative was reminding people of the alleged backwardness of ‘Cow friendly” groups eg any ‘Gau Mutra’ cure proposed by however obscure a section on a regular basis even  while any beating/ lynching done even as a reaction to theft was given a one sided communal hue and run weeks on end on prime time.

Thus while SM outrage could point a 100 times to lynchings of Gau Rakshaks, or owners or cops by cattle thieves and smugglers, the MSM would need just 1 counter to mainstream it in print and Television main stream outlets. This kind of reporting might have a number of takers in the West or the Middle East who have been fed a narrative against Idol worship, heathenism, Paganism but not in India! While there is a lobby here who think all Western narratives are based on a higher realization they forget with time many Western narratives will fall on the wrong side of history. This kind of reporting also has another reaction, the massive growth in reliance on SM outlets for fairness and the daily fall in trust in visual and print mainstream media and journalism.

All above has led to a debate and social media outlets professing to bust “Fake” news. Yet they also ‘bust’ fake news on a selective basis. For example they too bust what suits their narrative and what goes against either bust a selective,  inadvertent or irrelevant portion to belittle or underplay the overall narrative and label it ‘Fake’.

Yet it is not difficult to bust fake news. Fake news is completely dependent on narrative and specifically the propagation of a Fake one. Fake news is completely selective. Fake news goes by the exception is the rule for my narrative. Fake news completely ignores very vital statistical information and makes a concerted bid to hide that from its readers for reasons that it considers more valuable than the truth. Hence readers to tackle bias in news do consider the following:

1. If News is repeatedly selective. Eg only propagates from the perspective against a Gau Rakshak.
2. If News goes by the “Exception is the Rule” standard. Ignore 99 good things X does and highlight 1 bad. Also ignore 99 bad things Y does and highlight 1 good thing. Thus the narrative X is bad and Y is good is set even though the statistical precedent rubbishes the narrative.
3. Changes narrative by monkey balancing  for fear of violation of Order. False Equivalences. 
4. Considers Truth to be subservient to Order.
5. Considers Truth to be subservient to Communal Harmony.

Reasons for many normal people falling for fake narratives is narrative again. That Truth can be subservient to Order, that Justice too can be subservient to the need for Order. That keeping a group placated is more important than Truth. Also that it is communal to state a truth like the TN Health secretary labeled vital corona spreaders as ‘Single Source’. People in general saw through the facade and laughed at it, but there were many particularly in Officialdom taking the precedence of Order above Truth very seriously. These are the kind of self inflicted persuasions that motivate the basis of fake news and fake historical narratives too. Here below in an excerpt from an old Rediff article SL Bhyrappa explains how imperatives that make Truth subservient to order or harmony may have devastating effects on an entire civilization.

Further from penchant for creating fake news for fake narratives develop a bizarre desire to smear oneself with delusional, controversial and wild theories full of evil groups of men sitting huddled and planning misfortune for the rest of humankind. Such individuals so deluded framed bizarre theories of Modi and Shah running riots and sending death squads if not personally supervising killings in 2002. They published books since then rubbished, wrote opinions in major publications and even today hold sway in certain deluded but increasingly more ridiculed circles.

Fake news will exist much like Covid, but there will increasingly be more people enlightening themselves with the ability to spot it out using the points i have pointed out earlier. As that breed grows the relevance of fake news will come down. These are early years of social media and while the battle is still on, like always we must believe SatyaMevaJayate.