Our panel will discuss the impact of fake news and disinformation on TV journalism.
How can we ensure that citizens get fair, balanced and impartial news?
Broadcast TV news has been founded on these principles but in an age of fake news, partisan news channels and social media, this model appears to be under threat. How do we secure it for the future?
The infiltration of fake news in today’s society isn’t just a scourge for those in the newsrooms – it affects the authority of whole media brands on one side and the public’s well-being on the other. Since the term “fake news” was made Collins Dictionary’s word of the year in 2017, it has only become a bigger issue.
To prove how convincing fake news can be, attendees at this session were put to the test. Chair Naga Munchetty showed a series of viral images, with the audience deciding if they were real or fake using the poll function on the RTS Cambridge app.
An expert panel, routinely faced with decisions about how to cover fake news, considers the pitfalls, the ethics and the psychology behind one of the most insidious disrupters in the modern world.
Chair
Naga Munchetty, Journalist and Presenter, BBC Breakfast
Speakers
Sander van der Linden, Professor of Social Psychology in Society and Director of the Cambridge Social Decision Making Lab, University of Cambridge
Matthew Price, Editor, Data and Forensics Unit, Sky News
Deborah Turness, the ex-editor of ITV News who now runs Euronews in London as president of NBC News International following a spell as head of NBC News in New York, acknowledged that mainstream news outlets faced a challenge in the era of Trump and Brexit.
On both sides of the Atlantic mainstream media had failed to predict these events. There the parallels between Britain and America ended in terms of their different models of TV news provision.
Channel 4 News has announced a partnership with Facebook to produce a new weekly news show.
Uncovered is an in-depth news and analysis programme that will see Channel 4 News correspondents shedding light on unreported stories in 10-minute episodes.
The series will focus on one major international issue each week and is due to premier in the new year.
It is the latest commission for Facebook’s funded news shows initiative to tackle fake news and will be available on Facebook Watch.
The powerful new series is set against the run-up to the 2016 US Presidential election, focusing on the relationship between China and the US and several issues that affect society today.
An American photojournalist tries to discover the truth behind the iconic image that launched his career nearly 30 years previously.
The famous image is of a man facing down a tank in China’s Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. Years later, the journalist seeks out the Chinese man in the photo following accusations of fake news.
In a high-concept, passionate RTS lecture, illustrated by film clips and quotes from such 20th century giants as John Maynard Keynes and Bob Dylan, Puttnam mounted a passionate case for media regulation to curb the excesses of “data capitalism.”
“Tech monopolies (Google, Amazon, Facebook) are taking over the internet. A pernicious form of corporatism could, under the wrong set of circumstances, replace democracy as we have known and enjoyed it,” he said.
It was “nonsense” that these companies were too big to regulate.
The evidence is already clear that millennials largely ignore the news coverage of the traditional UK TV networks, said the Radio 4 Today presenter.
Unless broadcasters raise their game, Robinson said, there was a risk that quality news organisations like the BBC, ITN and Sky News would lose future generations of listeners and viewers.
Robinson, a former BBC and ITN political editor, said that erosion of trust in public institutions and the rise of alternative sources of news meant that traditional broadcasters needed to try harder.
Imagine that a broadcaster reaching over 1 billion people a day is making billions of pounds of profits every year, partly by distributing news coverage that includes numerous mistakes.
Imagine, too, that, when the broadcaster is called to account, its first proposed solution to the problem is to send out a message to viewers entitled “tips for spotting false news”. The first of the 10 tips is: “Be sceptical of headlines”.
The chances are that the broadcaster would be told that its so-called “new educational tool against misinformation” was hardly a satisfactory remedy.
Five months into the role of Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee of the House of Commons, and Damian Collins MP has consolidated a reputation as a well-informed politician with a decent grasp of key issues, ranging from fake news to the complexities of press regulation, post-Leveson.
His recent appearance at the Oxford Media Convention enhanced that reputation, with a speech stressing the seriousness of the fake news phenomenon.
