Category Archives: Fake News

The City of Cape Town insists that tap water is safe to drink in the metro.

The City of Cape Town has rubbished WhatsApp messages linking its water supply to the reported cluster outbreak of typhoid fever in the metro.

The Citys mayco member for water and sanitation Zahid Badroodien has stressed that Cape Towns tap water is safe to drink.

In a statement, the City says it's aware of fake news messages circulating in community WhatsApp groups, asking the public not to drink municipal-supplied tap water.

According to Badroodien, the fake news messages are also inaccurately linking typhoid fever mentioned in a recent article to the Citys water supply.

He says that the municipality continually monitors drinking water to ensure it complies with the strict requirements of the South African National Drinking Water Standard (SANS241).

"All drinking water samples tested this week complied with the South African National Drinking Water Standard on Acute Health Determinands and pose no health risk to the public, Badroodien adds.

The City of Cape Town assures residents that our tap water is safe to drink.

The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) has reported three cluster outbreaks in the Western Cape and one in the North West.

The Western Cape has reported a total of 64 cases across three districts the Cape Town Metro, the Cape Winelands, and the Garden Route.

RELATED: Officials tracing three cluster outbreaks of typhoid fever across Western Cape

Typhoid fever, also called enteric fever, is a bacterial infection that is spread by drinking contaminated water or eating contaminated food.

Dr. Juno Thomas from the NICD says diagnosing typhoid fever can be challenging due to its common and often flu-like symptoms such as fever, fatigue, headache, nausea.

According to the City, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of children brought to health facilities with symptoms like diarrhoea, vomiting, and dehydration.

The City's Patricia van der Ross has attributed these cases to poor hygiene and very hot conditions in Cape Town, not typhoid fever.

Unclean hands can spread viruses that cause diarrhoea. During hot summer days, food can easily get spoilt. If eaten, this can also cause diarrhoea, which can lead to dehydration. It is important to prepare and store food safely and to practice good hand hygiene at all times.

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City of CT says 'fake news' WhatsApp messages linking tap water to typhoid fever - CapeTalk

Civilians attend a military exercise for territorial defense amid the tension on the border with Russia, in Ukrainian capital Kyiv, Ukraine 13 February 2022.

Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Russia has compiled lists of Ukrainians to target after an invasion, a U.S. official has said, as President Vladimir Putin is set to address his country's security council.

In a letter to the U.N.'s Human Rights chief, seen by NBC News, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Bathsheba Nell Crocker said the U.S. had "credible information" that Russia has compiled lists of Ukrainians "to be killed or sent to camps" following an invasion. The contents of the letter were first reported Sunday evening byThe Washington Post.

"We also have credible information that Russian forces will likely use lethal measures to disperse peaceful protests or otherwise counter peaceful exercises of perceived resistance from civilian populations," she said.

The Kremlin refuted Crocker's accusations on Monday, dubbing reports that Russia had drawn up such lists as "fiction" when asked about it by reporters.

"You do understand that this is an absolute fake, that it's a lie?" he said.

Crocker also said in her letter that other human rights violations and abuses in the aftermath of an invasion were being planned in Moscow. Those who oppose Russian actions including Russian and Belarusian dissidents in exile in Ukraine as well as journalists, religious and ethnic minorities and the LGBTQI+ community were at risk of being subjected to these abuses, Crocker warned.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov told Ukrainian broadcaster ICTV on Monday that an invasion was unlikely to occur "tomorrow or the day after tomorrow," as no Russian "strike groups" had congregated at the border.

He added, however, that these groups could be set up within weeks.

It came after the White House warned Moscow was planning to launch a full-scale attack on Ukraine "very soon," and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned there was evidence Russia is planning "the biggest war in Europe since 1945."

Last week, the U.S. estimated there were now between 169,000 and 190,000 Russian troops in and near Ukraine, up from 100,000 at the end of January. The updated figures came despite Russian claims that it had begun to withdraw troops from the border, which were also contradicted by NATO and the EU.

Russia has repeatedly denied it plans to invade neighboring Ukraine. It has demanded guarantees that Ukraine never be allowed to join NATO a request rejected by the military alliance and the U.S. and has said it wants the organization to scale back its presence in eastern Europe.

In a special meeting on Monday of Russia's security council, Putin claimed threats to Russia would increase substantially if Ukraine joins NATO, according to Reuters.

The meeting of the council, led by Putin, came as fighting between Ukrainian authorities and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, which has been ongoing for eight years, continued to escalate.

Over the past week, Russian state media and Ukrainian authorities have pointed the finger at one another repeatedly for carrying out shelling attacks and other ceasefire violations.

Last week, the leader of one of the separatist-held areas in eastern Ukraine announced that residents would be evacuated to Russia with the assistance of the Russian government. It came after the country's lawmakers asked Putin last week to officially recognize two self-declared republics in Ukraine's east as independent.

Russian state media reported on Monday that Eduard Basurin, official representative of one of those breakaway areas, the Donetsk People's Republic, said in a YouTube video that self-proclaimed republics in eastern Ukraine needed financial, military and moral assistance from Russia.

The leaders of two Ukrainian areas held by pro-Moscow separatists also urged Russia to officially recognize them as independent on Monday.

Putin told his security council that recognition of the breakaway regions needed to be considered, Reuters reported.

Dmitry Kozak, Putin's special representative on Ukraine, said on Monday that Russia had been forced to spend "astronomical sums" on humanitarian aid for the two breakaway regions.

On Monday, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said Russian occupation forces had carried out "yet another provocation with the aim offalsely accusing Ukrainian service members."

"[The] aggressor opened heavy armament fire from the settlement ofLobacheve targeting Luhansk," the ministry said in a statement.

Over the past day, Ukrainian authorities said they had recorded 80 ceasefire violations, 72 of which involved the use of weapons prohibited by the Minsk agreements, treaties signed in 2014 and 2015 by Ukraine, Russia and separatist leaders.

"With Ukrainian defenders refraining from any aggressive acts that could possibly trigger aviolent response, the occupation forces continue todestroy civilian infrastructure onthe temporarily occupied territories and sporadically shell civilian settlements," Ukraine's Ministry of Defense added. "Itisobvious that the adversary continues touse the Russian propaganda machine towage information warfare, tofalsely accuse the Armed Forces ofUkraine and tofurther escalate the situation."

On Saturday, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe recorded more than 1,500 ceasefire violations in eastern Ukraine, including 1,413 explosions.

The east of Ukraine, near the Russian border, has long been the scene of low-level fighting. The OSCE has regularly reports violations of the cease-fire in eastern Ukraine during the eight-year conflict, in which around 13,000 people have died, but the numbers have risen drastically in recent days.

Russian state media claimed on Monday that the Russian military and border guards had killed five people when a "group of saboteurs from the territory of Ukraine" attempted to cross the border into Russia.

The alleged incident was said to have occurred at around 6 a.m. local time near the village of Mityakinskaya in the Rostov region.

Ukraine's Kuleba denied Russia's allegations on Monday, saying on Twitter that Ukraine had not carried out any attacks and had no intention of doing so.

"Russia, stop your fake-producing factory now," he said.

Western officials have warned that Russia could make false claims about the conflict in Ukraine's east to justify military aggression and an invasion, in what has been dubbed a "false flag attack" by the U.S. and the U.K.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the U.N. Security Council last week that this could include a fabricated terrorist bombing, the invented discovery of a mass grave, a staged drone strike against civilians or a fake chemical weapon attack.

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson's spokesperson told reporters on Monday that "elements of the Russian playbook" were "starting to play out in real time."

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba is meeting with EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday.

On Sunday, the White House announced that President Joe Biden has agreed "in principle" to a meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, provided there is no invasion of Ukraine. However, the U.S. still warned that Moscow is preparing for "a full-scale assault on Ukraine very soon."

The Kremlin said on Monday that there were currently no concrete plans for a meeting between Putin and Biden, according to Reuters.

Blinken is scheduled to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Europe later this week, again provided Moscow does not initiate any military action.

Biden on Sunday convened a meeting of the U.S. National Security Council to discuss the escalating tensions around Ukraine.

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U.S. warns that Moscow has compiled lists of Ukrainians to target after invasion - CNBC

Source: Telegram / Screenshot und Collage: CORRECTIV.Faktencheck

Each week, in a partnership with Correctiv, Exberliner will bring you a piece of misinformation that has been circulating online and the corresponding fact check.

The news shared on Telegram made a dramatic claim:

Ottawa, Canada, two million people out on the streets demanding freedom!

This is what people who dont want to become servants of globalism.

Nothing on the TV about this huge mobilisation. Once again the media is shown to have become the lying arm of the infection that has been embraced by humanity.

Accompanying this claim (which was spread on Facebook and Whatsapp) was a low resolution picture showing a vast crowd of people which filled a public square, waving flags and standing together in unity. Why, the users asked, was this vast uprising being ignored by the world media?

The explanation is simple: the picture is 30 years old, and doesnt show Canada at all but is in fact a demonstration against the government of Mikhail Gorbachev, former leader of the Soviet Union.

It is true that Ottawa, Canadas capital city, has seen several weeks of protests against the governments corona regulations, but this picture does not reflect those events. Correctiv were able to identify the image using a reverse image search, which led them to a Russian article from 2011 about the collapse of the Soviet Union.

There original attribution for the image was this:

Manezhnaya Square in Moscow was repeatedly the scene of mass rallies during perestroika, including unauthorised ones. This photo shows a rally where more than 100,000 participants demanded the resignation of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and also opposed the use of military force by the Soviet Army against Lithuania on January 20, 1991. (Photo by Vitaly Armand | AFP | Getty Images).

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Fake News of the Week: Two million march in Ottawa - EXBERLINER.com

Fake news has been around for thousands of years. Nero was falsely accused of playing the fiddle while Rome burned. But today, thanks to the internet and social media, a lie can travel around the world before the truth has even got out of bed.

Fake news has two advantages it spreads very quickly, and the time taken to set the record straight is much greater than it took to tell the original lie.

Back in 2013, an Italian programmer, Alberto Brandolini, watched an Italian political talk show where a journalist was sparring with an Italian ex-Prime Minister.

Brandolini quickly saw how easy it was to make incorrect claims, but how hard they were to debunk. On the spot, he invented Brandolinis Law, also known as the (to put it politely) the Bulldust Asymmetry Factor, or the BAF.

One of his early versions runs, The amount of energy needed to refute bulldust is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it. (An order of magnitude is scientific talk for ten times more).

Its much easier to spread lies, than truth. Thats why the middle word in BAF is asymmetry.

Heres three lies for you climate change isnt real, NASA/BOM have been faking the temperature readings, and how the heck can a tiny amount of carbon dioxide affect anything? I can say those lies in under 7 seconds, but it takes about 15 minutes to carefully explain just how and why they are wrong. In this case, the BAF, or Bulldust Asymmetry Factor, is about 120.

When somebody strings together a whole bunch of bulldust into a single outburst, they already have a few advantages.

First, they have the so-called first-mover advantage. Yep, a lot of people will accept the first thing they read.

Second, in many cases, its easier to tell lies than the truth, because for each single truth, there are a thousand lies.

Third, people who spread bulldust are often quite happy to fudge the facts, to quote data out of context, and to never admit that they make mistakes. This means they can generate enormous amounts of bulldust very quickly.

To spread fake news, it helps to eloquently deliver torrents of words, which are impressive because of their sheer volume. They can overwhelm their opponent by an enormous number of claims, regardless of the fact they are wrong. It also helps the spreading of fake news to quote scientific concepts totally out of context.

For example, it is often claimed that the Second Law of Thermodynamics proves that Evolution is wrong, when in reality it has nothing to do with Evolution but you might not know that if you hadnt studied Physics.

In 1931, a book entitled 100 Authors Against Einstein was published. Einsteins response was succinct, If I were wrong, then one (author) would have been enough!

Getting back to the asymmetry, an old proverb runs, a fool throws a stone into a well, but it takes 100 wise people to get it out again.

In todays world, the bottomless well of social media and the internet, is making the task of the wise people even more unrelenting.

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Bulldust assymetry factor, in fake news - News - The University of Sydney

Re: the Feb. 6 article "Trump's 2020 election claims."

In his letter the writer wrote, "Saying 'pigs fly' doesn't make it so."

To which I'd like to add, that it is similarly a lie to say that the January 6, 2020 violent insurrection and assault on the Capitol and on the US Constitution as incited by the ex-president, was "ORDINARY CITIZENS ENGAGED IN LEGITIMATE POLITICAL DISCOURSE," as the Republican National Committee tried to claim.

Furthermore, in the light of the widely-broadcast photographic documentation, this absurd claim is an insult to the intelligence of every seeing American voter. It was made by a weak-kneed political party, which lacks the guts to tell the truth, as they surely would if they cared at all about the future of democracy in our country.

Disclaimer: As submitted to the Arizona Daily Star.

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Letter: Fake News and Lies | Letters to the Editor - Arizona Daily Star

Some twenty French newspapers have joined forces with Agence France Presse and Google France to define what is true and what is false during elections. A new version of Pravda (Truth, in Russian) ?

On December 6, Agence France Presse (AFP) and Google France announced the creation of a program to fight against disinformation called Objectif Dsinfox. At the beginning of February 2022, about twenty major media* joined this project aiming at fighting against fake news during the election period.Thus, all the editorial offices involved will pool their fact-checks, in other words, their means of verifying the news. The media involved in this coalition will have at their disposal digital tools useful for cross-checking online information (Label Fact Check, Google Image Search, Trends, PinPoint, Invid-WeVerify, Politoscope developed by the CNRS, and the tweet counter and other ad-hoc tools proposed by Visibrain). In addition, AFP will deliver its #elections2022 fact-check feed to partner media free of charge.The intention is commendable.

Information has always been a formidable weapon, especially in critical times. Information is disinformation, manipulation, intoxication, propaganda, indoctrination In this respect, the role of the mass media is crucial. The media must say what is true and denounce false information aiming at destabilizing a man or a woman, a camp, a party, a country.Fake news, as we say today, has always existed, especially during wars. But they have taken a global dimension with the development of digital media and social networks.This was particularly evident during the U.S. elections, when both sides accused the other of using fake news. The outgoing president Donald Trump would have pronounced 30,573 lies according to the Washington Post. That is, on average, more than twenty per day! American intelligence services have also accused Moscow of hacking, intrusions and intoxication during the 2016 American elections.What happens in the United States, happens everywhere. Elections are a sensitive moment in a countrys democracy. Hence the interest in controlling journalistic information.

But how to distinguish the true from the false knowing that the world is neither all white nor all black and that the grey zone is largely in the majority? The naked truth does not exist, as we know. As for the lie, it often has the trappings of sincerity, even authenticity. Especially in politics, where what is true one day may not be true the next.Lets remember that both AFP and Google are already associated within the Trusted News Initiative (NTI) whose objective, with its partners, is to tackle dangerous misinformation on vaccines.Reuters is one of TNIs partners. Reuters has taken the lead in the crusade against anti-vaccine misinformation and to restore its truth about vaccines. NTI is responsible for censoring, on all platforms, all articles that would question this truth.However, the international news agency Reuters was chaired, from 2012 to 2020, by a certain James C. Smith who is also, since June 26, 2014 a member of the board of directors of Pfizer Inc. And one of the first investors. Note that Mr. Smith is also a member of the International Business Council of the World Economic Forum and many international advisory boards.Lets never forget that the biggest newspaper of the Soviet era was called Pravda, which means Truth.

*20 Minutes, AFP, Arte, BFMTV, Euronews, Fact & Furious, FactoScope, France24, Konbini, LCI, M6, Mediacits, Phosphore, Rue89 Bordeaux, Rue89 Strasbourg, RFI, Radio France Maghreb 2, RMC, RTL, TF1 and TV5 Monde.** TNIs partners? These are the major news agencies that supply all the worlds newsrooms: Agence France Presse (AFP), Associated Presser (AP), Reuters, but also the BBC, CBC/Radio-Canada, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), Facebook, Financial Times, First Draft, Google/YouTube, The Hindu, Microsoft, Reuters, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Twitter and The Washington Post

What media literacy and digital citizenship ?

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"Objectif Dsinfox" : the truth according to the media - Frenchdailynews.com

Omid Nouripour is one of the new co-leaders of the Greens. Photo: Future/Image

German Greens have been a regular target for online fake news, so the appointment of two new party leaders was bound to attract some attention from purveyors of online misinformation.

At the end of January, Ricarda Lang and Omid Nouripour succeeded Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck as party leaders, due to an internal Green party rule which means that holders of political office are not eligible for that position. However, on the same day the announcement was made, fake news began to spread on Twitter and YouTube about one of the co-leaders, Omid Nouripour.

The claim itself was grimly predictable, considering Nouripours ethnic background apparently the leader (who in fact belongs to the more moderate/conservative wing of the party) wants to introduce Sharia Law in Germany.

One Twitter user, Ali Utlu, wrote:

The new Green leader Nouripour would like to introduce parts of the Sharia that are compatible with the Basic Law.

The colour of this party is the same as that of Islam. Green.

Will this eventually mean killing homosexuals and cutting off limbs? Resist the beginnings!

As evidence for this claim, a video clip was disseminated in which Nouripour reacted to a speech made by a member of the AfD. He never makes the claim that Sharia Law should be introduced. Rather, in response to a fear-mongering claim about Sharia Law, Nouripour simply points out that Muslims should be able to practice their religion wherever it does not contradict German law.

As Correctiv have pointed out in a previous fact check, Sharia Law is not in fact a single unitary system, but an accumulated system of interpretation including different norms and practices, like when to pray and how often, how to fast during Ramadan, rules on alms tax, pilgrimage and differing ideas on how to dress such as whether to wear the headscarf.

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Fake news of the week: Do the Greens want Sharia law? - EXBERLINER.com

Whatever your opinion of Donald Trump, theres no arguing he was a slogan master.

He was lightning fast on the draw to deflect tough questions, instantly creating mantras to shift the focus.

There were many, but his fake news catchphrase was a favoured arrow in his armoury to glibly dismiss probing media exposs and create his own narrative.

It caught up with him eventually, though. You can deflect the truth for only so long.

Yet, the unintended consequence of The Trumpets chant is that it became an international two-word anthem for conspiracy theorists lurking on social media platforms.

Whenever people want to dismiss credible news bulletins because these contradict their own untested opinions, or might reflect poorly on their actions, they simply whip out their fake news cards without offering verifiable facts of their own or entering into intelligent discourse.

The Donalds jargon jive held consequences for the formal mainstream media, increasingly under attack by conspiracy theorists pushing their own agendas.

Unlike social media on which any blunt pencil can post defamatory insults, irrational diatribes and their own fake news without accountability, the Fourth Estate doesnt have that liberty

Registered newspapers, such as The North Coast Courier, radio and TV channels cannot afford to publish or broadcast deliberate fake news.

They ascribe to and are bound by a very strict code of conduct developed and monitored by the South African Press Council. It is elaborate and you can find it on the councils website.

In essence, it protects the public against unethical journalistic practices.

Aggrieved parties can haul any media transgressors to the Press Ombudsman ([emailprotected]) in double quick time and they are quick to investigate and rule on the outcome.

So no, ethical mainstream media will not deliberately publish or broadcast false information, the consequences are simply too embarrassing.

The facts of every sensitive or controversial story have to be thoroughly checked and verified before going to print or hitting the airwaves. Failure to do so has dire repercussions.

This is not the case with the open house nature of social media.

The public should learn to understand the difference before they lap up all the fake news nonsense.

Admittedly, despite all the best efforts for zero mistakes in the mainstream media, errors do on occasion fall through the cracks, but this must be seen in context.

Any news outlet is reliant on official sources for information, who often pass on wrong facts for dissemination.

The increasing unprofessionalism in the communications sector contributes significantly to this dilemma.

One of the key codes of ethics is that the media must unwaveringly remain neutral.

They are never out to get anyone or pick sides. Reporting must always be accurate and fair, reflecting both sides of a story.

Unfortunately many news articles will offend and upset some parties at the wrong end of the stick, but the people have the right to know what is happening in their world good or bad.

That is the nature of the media beast.

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#IssuesAtStake: Rise of the fake news jockeys - North Coast Courier

Its been a wild week for Joe Rogan. After a COVID-19 controversy, Rogan has been under fire for his rampant use of the n-word. In recent days, Rogan has apologized for freely dropping the word on his podcast, while also stating that he did not mean to offend anyone.

Hearing the news and the apologies, former President Donald Trump issued a statement calling for Rogan to end his round of apologies.

Joe Rogan is an interesting and popular guy, but hes got to stop apologizing to the Fake News and Radical Left maniacs and lunatics, Trump said in a statement to The Hill.

How many ways can you say youre sorry? Joe, just go about what you do so well and dont let them make you look weak and frightened, Trump added. Thats not you and it never will be!

Over 70 episodes of the podcast were removed from Spotify ahead of Rogans apology. Theres nothing I can do to take that back. I wish I could. Obviously, thats not possible, Rogan said. I certainly wasnt trying to be racist, and I certainly would never want to offend someone for entertainment with something as stupid as racism.

Trump joins a crew of Rogan supporters, which includes Hip-Hop figure J. Prince. J. Prince shared Rogans apology video on Instagram, and wrote under, Joe Rogan is not a racist. I know this brother. It takes a sincere individual to admit when they are wrong and have fucked up about a situation. As you can hear hes done that and I forgive him because I never want to become one of those people that are filled with un-forgiveness and hate, that we complain about all the time.

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Donald Trump to Joe Rogan: "Stop Apologizing to the Fake News" - The Source Magazine

Every year, Project Censored publishes State of the Free Press, an in-depth look at the years best independent journalism, centering voices and topics marginalized by the establishment press. Each volume features the projects list of the years most important but underreported news stories. In addition, the book provides critical analysis of the junk food news served by the establishment media and the prevalence of news abuse. It also revisits previous years top 25 stories and shares the inspiring examples of media democracy in action. The top 25 list for State of the Free Press 2022 includes topics such as how climate debtor nations have colonized the atmosphere, the way Pfizer bullies South American governments over the COVID-19 vaccine and the scant coverage of the historic wave of wildcat strikes for workers rights.

State of the Free Press is edited by Andy Lee Roth and Mickey Huff. Roth is the coordinator of Project Censoreds Campus Affiliates Program, which brings hundreds of professors and students at colleges and universities across the U.S. together in a collective effort to identify each years most underreported news stories. Huff is the projects director and president of the nonprofit Media Freedom Foundation. We asked Roth and Huff to share their thoughts on what important news goes unmentioned and why.

Peter Handel: How does Project Censored decide on its top 25 most censored stories each year?

Andy Lee Roth: The aim of the projects annual top 25 story list is to alert the public to extraordinarily important news stories that have been marginalized, distorted or ignored by the corporate news media, and to celebrate the good work of the independent journalists who have helped inform the public about those stories nonetheless.

The production of the projects annual top 25 story list is a year-long process that involves several hundred people and at least five distinct rounds of review and evaluation. Candidate stories are nominated by college students participating in the projects Campus Affiliates Program and interested community members. Once identified, stories are vetted by those students and their faculty mentors for newsworthiness, credibility, transparency of sourcing and corporate news coverage. If a story fails on any one of these criteria, it is deemed inappropriate and excluded from further consideration.

Once Project Censored receives the candidate story, we undertake a second round of evaluation, using the same criteria and updating the review to include any subsequent corporate news coverage. Stories that pass this stage of review are posted on the projects website as Validated Independent News stories (or VINs).

In spring, we present all eligible VINs in the current annual cycle to the faculty and students at our affiliate campuses and to our panel of expert judges, who vote to winnow the candidate stories down from several hundred to a short list.

The stories that make the short list are subject to another round of intensive review, and those that pass muster are sent to our panel of judges, who vote to rank them in numerical order. The resulting top 25 story list is featured in Project Censoreds annual book, on our website and by independent news weeklies across the country.

Give us a few examples of the independent news stories featured on the 2020-2021 story list.

Andy Lee Roth: One of this years top stories is the historic wave of wildcat strikes: Payday Report, an independent news outlet focused on labor issues, has documented more than 1,750 wildcat strikes since March 2020. Corporate media have by and large failed to connect the dots on the scope of these protests. In fact, until October 2021, when the corporate media began to cover Striketober, corporate news framed worker protests during the pandemic as sporadic, isolated events. Overall, corporate news media do a poor job of covering labor issues.

This years number two story, Journalists Investigating Financial Crimes Threatened by Global Elites, focused on a report by the U.K.-based Foreign Policy Centre about the threats faced by journalists investigating financial misconduct by wealthy individuals and international corporations. Journalists from 41 nations reported being subject to defamation lawsuits, social media smear campaigns, online trolling and even physical violence in the course of investigating stories on financial crimes. Although the Foreign Policy Centres report received some attention from corporate news media outside the United States, our research found that, as of July 2021, no major commercial newspaper or broadcast outlet in the United States had so much as mentioned the report. This is especially troubling because threats to journalists undermine freedom of the press and jeopardize the health of democratic societies.

Still other stories on the list have received limited corporate news coverage, but that coverage is not at all proportional to the significance of the topic. For example, story number 19, about Europes hunger for biomass fuel made from American forests, was the subject of one exemplary New York Times article, but no other corporate news outlet so much as ran an op-ed on the issue. The harvesting of timber for biomass fuels has led to toxic air pollution and catastrophic flooding along the southern coast of the United States, including North and South Carolina, southern Georgia, Alabama and northern Florida, but most Americans know nothing about this because the establishment press have failed to cover the issue.

In State of the Free Press 2022, you talk about disturbing attacks on the media at home and abroad. What were the major challenges to a free press in 2020-2021?

Mickey Huff: The COVID-19 pandemic is the most obvious threat to journalistic integrity, but not the only one. The pandemic has done severe damage to every sector of American society, and journalism has not been spared. In December 2021, the Poynter Institute reported that more than 100 local news outlets have closed since the beginning of the pandemic a terrible loss that accelerates the spread of news deserts, communities and regions where there is no local news coverage at all. Project Censored has documented how corporate outlets with conservative agendas swoop into these communities to exploit the need for local news.

But the threats to journalism arent limited to the pandemic. The United States is an increasingly dangerous place for journalists, who are subject to assaults, arrests and other threats. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker described 2021 as another record year for press freedom violations in the country, and documented 142 assaults on journalists, 59 arrests or detainments, 23 subpoenas of journalists or news organizations, and 36 instances of journalists having equipment damaged or destroyed. For these and related reasons, the United States ranked just 44th of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borderss 2021 World Press Freedom Index, which identified the disappearance of local news and ongoing and widespread distrust of mainstream media among the many chronic, underlying conditions impacting press freedoms in the United States.

A third threat to journalistic integrity comes from Big Tech. The impacts of the internet and the increasing influence of social media cannot be overstated. Google may not be a country, but it is a superpower, Timothy Garton Ash noted in his book, Free Speech: Ten Principles for a Connected World. The new media giants including Alphabet (which owns Google and YouTube), Meta (which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp), Twitter, Apple and Microsoft function as arbiters of public issues and legitimate discourse, despite their leaders assertions that they are tech platforms, not publishers or media companies.

As Andy Lee Roth has written, these tech giants are the new gatekeepers and their proprietary algorithms determine which news stories circulate widely, raising serious concerns about transparency and accountability in determinations of newsworthiness. Accountability and transparency are guiding principles for ethical journalism. But news gatekeeping conducted by proprietary algorithms crosses wires with these ethical guidelines, producing grave threats to the integrity of journalism not to mention the likelihood of a well-informed public.

Did threats to freedom of the press worsen during the Trump administration, or have they remained basically the same since 1976 when Project Censored began?

Andy Lee Roth: Trumps presidency exposed (and exploited) chronic malignancies in American society that predated his rise to power. Trump was extraordinary in his zeal to condemn the press as the enemy of the people whenever it reported news that failed to flatter him. He seemed opposed to any form of journalism that involved factual reality, with the exception, perhaps, of alternative facts, as endorsed by his counselor Kellyanne Conway. Its difficult to accept that there is no connection between Trumps provocative rhetoric and subsequent violence and threats directed at journalists, from Rep. Greg Gianfortes 2017 assault of a Guardian reporter, to the message Murder the Media scratched onto a door to the U.S. Capitol during the failed insurrection on January 6, 2021.

But it is misleading and dangerous to assume that U.S. journalism was free of faults until Donald Trump weaponized the term fake news to serve his own interests. That position cedes more influence to Trump than he deserves, while it ignores the importance of deep, structural flaws in corporate news media. As Project Censoreds Steve Macek and I argued in a November 2020 article for Truthout, explanations of news bias that trace it back to the self-interest and partisan bias of editors and journalists or even aggregates of those individual interests and biases fail to explain the political power of news or to identify the foundations on which far more fundamental forms of news slant are built. To understand the establishment medias deepest biases requires a structural analysis of journalism, including the economic imperatives, institutional constraints, professional values and social relationships that shape the production of every news story. These are the basic building blocks of the critical media literacy that Project Censored champions.

A clear-eyed analysis of threats to freedom of the press must look back before Trumps presidency not to mention beyond it. The Biden administration does not refer to the press as enemy of the people, but it continues in its efforts to extradite Julian Assange. And, although the First Amendment provides protection against prior restraint the effort to prevent publication or publicization of information or ideas by the government, in November 2021, a New York State court ordered The New York Times not to publish information about the group Project Veritas, a far right group notorious for its production of deceptively edited videos. As the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker noted, this was the first prior restraint for the Times since the Pentagon Papers case of 1971.

In your book you include a chapter on sensationalized and empty Junk Food News that discusses something you call humilitainment. What is Junk Food News, and how does it distract us from more substantive reporting?

Mickey Huff: Project Censored began to track Junk Food News after news editors contacted Carl Jensen, the projects founder, to counter the projects claim that certain news topics were censored. Citing a finite amount of time and space for news reporting, which prevented them from covering every important story, those editors got Jensen wondering: What do they report? The problem, Jensen found, was not necessarily a lack of time and space for substantive news, but the quality of the news selected to fill that limited time and space. Most of it was, in Jensens words, sensationalized, personalized, and homogenized inconsequential trivia, for which he coined the now-common term Junk Food News.

Today, faculty and students working with Project Censored continue to track Junk Food News. This years chapter investigates the social networking service TikTok as a popular purveyor of junk food news. In particular, the analysis focuses on humilitainment, a term developed in 2005 by media scholars Brad Waite and Sara Booker to describe entertainment that capitalizes on someone elses humiliation. TikTok trades in humilitainment, as exemplified by sensational news coverage of Gorilla Glue Girl. The chapters authors show how a fascination with humilitainment obscured more substantive reporting on topics including humanitarian crises in Yemen and Ethiopia, the wave of disproportionately female unemployment propelled by COVID-19, and legislation to restrict voting rights.

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Attacks on Journalists Are Just One Looming Threat to Press Freedom in the US - Truthout