Fake news and the MSM

Donald Tusk, President of the EU Council, wondered this week about the ‘special place in hell … for those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely.”

In Dante’s Inferno the deepest circle in hell is reserved for traitors. Sounds about right for people who lure their nation down a road with no idea where it leads.

There was, inevitably, an outcry in response to Tusk’s comments. But an EU source confirmed that he stood by his words. “He remains of the view that while the truth may be more painful, it is always more useful.”

That’s not just true, it’s far more significant than the “special place in hell” remark it followed. The truth isn’t always comfortable. Indeed, it’s often challenging.

That’s something that needs to be said and repeated . Especially today. There is a spirit in the air that says “only what I want to hear is true”. The spirit is entirely non-partisan, embracing both left and right. Corbynistas in Britain or Trumpists in the US are as eager as each other to denounce the ‘MSM’ (mainstream media) for peddling ‘fake news’. But when you look more closely, you find that what they’re really objecting to is news that makes them uncomfortable.

There is, for instance, an inclination in certain circles of the left to feel that the government of Venezuela deserves unqualified backing because it proclaims itself to be Socialist, and in such circles, merely to make the claim is enough to win support. It isn’t true of everyone. Emily Thornberry, for instance, the Labour Party’s foreign affairs spokesman recently pointed out that, while calling himself a socialist, President Maduro has betrayed every principle of socialism.

Emily Thornberry gave a thoughtful and thought-provoking speech on Venezuela
and, remarkably, the Guardian reported on it fairly and extensively

It was interesting reading the report of her speech, in that MSM outlet the Guardian, which gave it balanced and extensive coverage. For instance, she argued, in my view courageously and convincingly that, for all Maduro’s failings, it was wrong to recognise the legitimacy of the self-proclamation as interim president of his opponent Juan Guaidó:

We need to give them time, and that offer has been made internally and externally. We need to ensure that happens – that is the best way to proceed, rather than to suddenly say: ‘That’s it, we’ve had enough. We recognise X. We do not recognise Y any more.’ It’s not the way to treat another country, even a country in as desperate a situation as Venezuela.

Such good sense and moderation isn’t universal in the Labour Party. Many in Labour still claim that the desperate state of Venezuela is all the fault of US sanctions. They refuse to accept that Venezuela is an oil economy and has faced sanctions for a far shorter time than Cuba, which does at least manage to feed its people and provide them with healthcare.

But these people don’t read MSM papers like the Guardian. Instead, they read outlets like vezenuelaanalysis.com which tell us that what is happening in Venezuela is an attempted coup against Maduro. And what is this source of information? It’s an online paper founded with money from the Venezuelan government and which claims to be supported today entirely by its readers – though we don’t know who those readers are. A recent reposting of a link to one of these stories included the comment “You won’t see this in Western media”. Well, that’s true. And I would hope not. Because the media I read – the Guardian, the Independent, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and others who aspire to professional journalism – don’t take their information from sources whose background is unclear, whose standards are unknown, and whose bias is obvious.

But the beauty of this Venezuelan paper is that it tells its readers what they want to read. And to many people that’s what matters today: not to learn from what they read, as I did from Thornberry’s remarks, but to have their faith confirmed. Because they aren’t looking for evidence, they are driven by belief. And that seems to be a deeply ingrained need in many circles today.

Look at the anti-vaxxer movement. It is having some success, with vaccination rates too low in more and more countries. But somehow anti-vaxxers see no connection between those low rates and the rising numbers of infections, and even deaths, from entirely preventable diseases.

We even see believers in a flat Earth growing in numbers, even though in one instance at least, their very attempts to prove their faith depends on systems based on the Earth being round.

There’s a widespread thirst for belief, not knowledge. Independent of evidence.

The other end of the political spectrum is entirely symmetrical. In the US, the National Enquirer is trying to pressurise Jeff Bezos over some compromising texts and images a hacker has passed them. There can be differing views over whether or not Bezos should have sent those messages. What, however, seems clear is that he is being targeted because he’s the owner of the Washington Post or, as Trump calls it, the Amazon Washington Post (Bezos is also the founder of Amazon).

Here’s the Tweet in which Trump reacted to the first announcement of the revelations about Bezos:

So sorry to hear the news about Jeff Bozo being taken down by a competitor whose reporting, I understand, is far more accurate than the reporting in his lobbyist newspaper, the Amazon Washington Post. Hopefully the paper will soon be placed in better & more responsible hands!

What doesn’t Trump like about the Washington Post? In the same way as the Maduro fans who can’t cope with Guardian, he hates the fact that the Post sometimes publishes information that isn’t – how shall I put this? – entirely flattering about him.

Both the Maduro supporters and the Trump fans reject the ‘mainstream media’ that sometimes challenges their beliefs with evidence – because those pesky publications insist on standards which involve such boring things as confirmation of sources and careful editing of material for accuracy. That’s not to say they never make mistakes – they certainly do – but it does mean they don’t just spew out propaganda.

No good if you’re flat earther. And the anti-vaxxers, Trump worshippers and Corbyn cult adepts aren’t much different from the flat earthers. Belief trumps information. The truth, as Tusk made clear this week, can sometimes be more painful, and they don’t want that pain.

But the truth’s also much more useful. As I found from Thornbery, in the Guardian this week, when she opened my eyes to another way of seeing things.

A salutary experience which, sadly, the true believers deny themselves.

Amazing: a good political story. But then it's about an amazing character

You might not have spotted a significant political moment yesterday.

A man with enough humility to make anyone proud, José “Pepe” Mujica was certainly the world’s humblest politician. Yesterday he passed on the presidency of Uruguay to his elected successor Tabaré Vázquez who, as it happens, was also his predecessor. Vázquez has an excellent track record: he and Mujica between them have made their country the most successful in the region.

But it’s Pepe who’s extraordinary. This is a time when, in Britain, two of our most senior politicians, both former Foreign Secretaries, one from each of the two main parties, fell into a ridiculous trap: journalists posing as representatives of a fictitious Chinese company persuaded them to offer to work on its behalf for sky-high fees (one suggested £5000 a day), with no concern as to whether their duties as members of Parliament would allow them to take on such a commitment (one suggested that he was free 95% of his time).

Pepe Mujica at work

By way of contrast to this cupidity, Pepe gave up 90% of his salary as President, asking for it to be paid to a range of charities supporting poor people and small businesses. He and his wife, a Uruguayan Senator, refused to move in to the Presidential palace, but stayed in their modest farm on the edge of the capital, Montevideo, where they make a little money growing chrysanthemums, and live with their three-legged dog.

What makes this still more remarkable is that Pepe wasn’t always so peaceful. In the mid-sixties he joined the Tupamaros guerrilla organisation, a movement we would no doubt regard as terrorist today. In 1970, he was involved in a gun battle which left two policemen injured and himself riddled with six bullets. His life was only saved by a highly competent surgeon who put dedication to his professional duties above any political views he may have held.

Despite three escapes, each leading to recapture, Mujica spent thirteen years in gaol, two of them at the bottom of an old horse trough. The experience wrecked his health, mentally as well as physically.

As President, not only did he build on the economic success of Vázquez, he also legalised gay marriage and oversaw the legalisation of abortion. He even introduced a government-backed cannabis market. I saw him interviewed, and it’s clear he regards cannabis as an abomination. But there are so many users and it makes no sense to leave them as prey to criminal drug dealers. Legalising the trade makes it controllable.

There are so many morals to this story it’s hard to know where to begin.

Perhaps the first is to do with rehabilitation. In Europe or the United States, Mujica would have been in gaol for the rest of his life, or possibly executed. But Uruguay amnestied the Tupamaros after the restoration of democracy, so it was able to enjoy this extraordinary man’s enlightened presidency.

As the cannabis story showed, he can recognise that there are others who see things differently from him, and they deserve protection too. The mere fact that he disapproves of the drug they consume doesn’t mean the government has to suppress it, or oppress them. He’s right to point out that it’s not disapproval that matters but control, and that’s a lot easier within the framework of law.

Finally, he showed that success doesn’t have to mean ostentation and the flaunting of wealth. His trademark was the 1987 blue Volkswagen Beetle he insisted on driving instead of an official car. He served his people, and did it for a modest income.

Great picture from the Independent
Such a common scene: security agents by a Presidential car –
but with a beat-up blue Beetle instead of the black Cadillac?

Practically all the things he did would spell electoral disaster in most of the apparently advanced democracies. Why, he even showed up for the investiture of his successor in his usual black suit, with no tie, and wearing brown rubber-soled shoes.

And here’s the question. Who’s got it right? The people of our wealthier nations or those of Uruguay?

Here’s a clue to the answer. Today’s Independent quotes Charo Baroni, a 66-year-old housewife, saying “he’s the best president we’ve ever had.”

How many ordinary electors of our nations would speak so warmly of their leaders?

Thanks for everything dear old man
How many of our politicians get that kind of a send off?