THUNDER BAY – EDITORIAL – News reporting is a challenge at times. Especially lately. Between the seemingly endless antics of US President Donald Trump, and even back in 2022 covering the ‘Freedom Convoy’ on NetNewsLedger was been both a challenge and a learning experience.
The war in the Ukraine, which has raged on for too many years, and yet really for most has faded from their social media scroll, sorting through the facts to ensure what our reports cover is accurate is real work.
There is a lot of propaganda out there where both sides of the conflict are working to get out their version of the facts. Their truth.
Media in order to be trusted has to be as accurate as possible.
It is a real challenge because events are happening around the world, and getting all the facts means digging a little deeper.
Evan Solomon on Twitter said, “Political journalists, our job is to hold people who have an enormous amount of power to account … without doing it in a false way that’s protecting our own power structure.”
The number of people out there complaining about “Fake News” seems to be growing around the world.
Supporters of the far right have said repeatedly that the facts of their efforts are not getting out because the main stream media isn’t reporting properly.
Right now the criminal cases of some of the leaders of the Freedom Convoy are getting to the stage where the court will be rendering a verdict in the cases.
Looking back at some of our coverage on NetNewsLedger, what has made the news however have been the efforts and antics of some of the supporters and the organizers as well.
Some examples?
50,000 trucks and 1.5 million people are headed to Ottawa
Here in Thunder Bay, as the ‘Freedom Convoy’ made its way into Ontario, repeatedly supporters and spokespersons for the convoy reported 50,000 trucks. When the convoy got to the Manitoba / Ontario provincial boundary, there were about 500 vehicles. That included about 274 transport trucks.
Theo Fleury told Fox News that 50,000 trucks and 1.4 million people were headed to Ottawa.
Fake News?
Fake news is defined as false or misleading information presented as real news. The term was first used in the 1890s when sensational reports in newspapers were common.
President Donald J. Trump frequently used the term to describe the New York Times, CNN, and other media outlets. With the growth of social media, comments on news websites and perhaps the global pandemic, there has been a large resurgence in people claiming that main stream media companies are creating fake news.
In lots of ways, fake news is often the claim when the news report isn’t what a person reading it wants to hear, or believes.
Is it all “Left Wing” Mainstream Media?
As an example of “Fake News” let us examine one of the pieces of news that has made the rounds on social media in recent weeks.
The claim that Canada’s former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is actually the son of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro has been repeatedly posted on Facebook, Twitter and other social media.
A then Fox News reporter, Tucker Carlson spent time on his show treating this story as a fact.
The truth? Well this story has been debunked more times than most “Fake News”.
No, the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro is not the father of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The well-worn piece of false news has reemerged on social media amid protests in Canada spurred by a convoy of truckers and other demonstrators.https://t.co/0r938mhzkE
— AP Fact Check (@APFactCheck) February 9, 2022
Don’t trust AP News?
No problem, Snopes debunked this one back in 2016.
Snopes states, “The Trudeaus were indeed close to Fidel Castro, who once described Pierre Trudeau as “a close friend and an extraordinary figure.” Margaret Trudeau was also open in her later writings about her various past affairs. And yes, young Castro and Justin Trudeau might bear a physical resemblance. The notion that the Trudeaus and the Castros met in 1971, however, is based what appears to be a willful misreading of a newspaper article by a reddit use”.
Always keep in mind that the person telling you that something is “Fake News” just might not have the best fact-checking department.
So How Does the News Get Reported?
Media outlets get media releases, in fact literally hundreds of them everyday. Depending on the media outlet and its size, reporters cover what their editor or producers decide will be covered.
At NetNewsLedger we have since 2007 cultivated a lot of news sources. We have had people from Wuhan China helping us get facts and pictures early in the pandemic. Everyday our NewsHawks send tips and images.
Over the course of times in covering news, we have received a number of news tips. Honestly we appreciate them, they help us do our job here at NNL.
We work hard to fact check reports before publishing them. If we make a mistake, we admit it. One of our goals is not to make mistakes.
Reporting news isn’t just grabbing what someone says and reporting it. For all those out there attacking journalists who are simply doing the jobs they have training, experience, and skills in gathering facts and sifting through them perhaps it is time for a little reflection.
When we get a news tip at NetNewsLedger, it starts a process. No credible reporter, and no credible news outlet would take a news tip and report it as fact. A reporter goes through a process in reporting.
We need to answer these questions when trying to verify information:
- “Who says?”
- “How do they know?”
- “Are they biased?”
- “What don’t I know?”
We get news-tips where the person won’t give us their name. Most of the time we don’t spend a great deal of time on those tips. Keep this in mind, one of the biggest stories in the past fifty plus years was the Watergate break-in that toppled President Richard Nixon. Reporters Woodward and Bernstein were guided along the way by a source that they called “Deep Throat”.
Woodward and Bernstein were reporters for The Washington Post, and Deep Throat provided key details about the involvement of U.S. president Richard Nixon’s administration in what came to be known as the Watergate scandal. In 2005, 31 years after Nixon’s resignation and 11 years after Nixon’s death, a family attorney stated that former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Associate Director Mark Felt was Deep Throat.
While the two Washington Post reporters didn’t tell their readers, or even their publishers who their source was, they knew his real identity.
Woodward and Bernstein gathered information and used double and triple checking of the information they received.
So in getting news tips we also want to know how they know? Do they have information they heard? Can they prove it? Will they go on the record?
It is also important to know if there is a bias, in the information they are providing? Do they have an axe to grind?
Media is not a place for someone to play out their personal vendetta against another person, another business, or a political party.
Get both sides
Whenever possible on news stories, we try to get both sides, if and when there is another side.
Today we are seeing some of what happens when media doesn’t get taken seriously. In Canada, now Prime Minister Mark Carney has excluded reporters from Juno News, Rebel News, and similar right leaning media from his press events.
Now I realize to some those news outlets are not their favourite, and likely not the favourite of the Liberal Party in Canada. That does not matter, truthfully that we don’t like something isn’t a reason for bannishment.
In the United States, the White House Press gallery is being opened up to more Non-Traditional Media outlets. The Associated Press (AP) was lambasted from the podium by Trump’s press secretary because they called Trump’s “Gulf of America” the Gulf of Mexico.
We are living in strange times right now, and more importantly than ever it is key that the media is allowed to cover news.
