Hoaxing the Tabloids

The new documentary movie Starsuckers exposes the scant regard for facts exhibited by many of the UK's tabloid "newspapers".  Director Chris Atkins and his team managed to dupe most of fleet street, which published a string of fabricated celeb gossip stories phoned in by Atkins and his hoaxters.  Given the lightweight subject matter i.e. did Avril Lavigne really fall asleep at London nightclub Bungalow 8, the revelation that the tabloids aren't in the front running for any Pulitzers this year is hardly a shock.  But this lazy celeb journalism is the thin end of the wedge - let's hope it doesn't infect others in the newsroom working on meatier issues.  Good feature here in the Guardian.  

Free Press and Fake News

Fake news is on the increase, whether it is the digitally enhanced photograph which literally doesn't show the true picture, government and corporate PR machines which package and deliver stories favourable to their own interests, or any number of 'advertorial' or 'infotainment features published in both the electronic and print media.

Western democracies in particular pride themselves on having a 'free' press - but what value does a free press have if it increasingly allows itself to promote fakery and false news on behalf of vested interests?

Andy Duckworth