Fake news infecting the Letters column
At present there is rightly much concern over the subject of “fake news” and how to remove it from respected mainstream media. While a chore in these days of outbursts, gesturing and Twitter storms, it should be the clear duty of those media organs that wish to be taken seriously to make the effort.
While I realise that The Nation’s Letters column is not news but merely bursts of highly subjective opinion, there has been a worrying increase in the peddling of “fake facts” within these offerings.
I expose three examples, in no particular order of ridiculousness.
First, the March 2 letter in which Dr Frank claims that the “US has almost 400 military bases surrounding China”. While there are American bases in South Korea, Japan and other locations, the figure of 400 is utter fantasy.
Second, March 3’s “Released from EU cage, Great Britain set to roar again”, in which JC Wilcox says former UK prime minister John Major committed treason in signing the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. However much he may personally dislike the actions of an elected head of state acting within a parliamentary framework to undertake international negotiations, such actions are not treason.
And third, in his letter yesterday, “A titanic tyranny heading for iceberg”, David Iggulden asserts that “the EU parliament is not actually a parliament since all its members are of the same ‘European’ party”. Not content with this falsehood, he adds, “Under the Treaty of Lisbon, it is illegal within the EU for citizens to criticise the EU or any EU organisation.”
As absurd entertainment, these “facts” may be amusing, but by printing them in their entirety, The Nation does nothing to increase the knowledge of its readers or its own standing as a newspaper.
John De Laurent
