No news? Never mind, just fake some of your own

You know what? I’m starting to enjoy this ‘fake news’ era we are now very clearly living in. 

For let’s be honest about something. ‘Real news’ was always a little overrated. About the last time I read a story in a local newspaper in which every allegation was thoroughly substantiated, and there wasn’t any room at all to speculate that the whole thing might have been fabricated from scratch... it was actually about some random guy caught shitting behind a skip in a Birkirkara side-street.

‘Man seen defecating in public has been identified’, the headline ran. And thank goodness for that, I remember thinking. Otherwise, that poor little shit would never have got to know the identity of its true biological father...

But then again, there can be little doubt that this particular event (unlike nearly everything else reported in the news these days) really did take place. The ‘Phantom Shitter of Birkirkara’ was filmed taking his outdoor crap on CCTV camera; and a still from the footage showed him in the act of wiping his arse... with the newly deposited turd still steaming on the asphalt.

Now, I ask you: if that’s the sort of ‘real news’ that is seriously considered worthy of publication in a mainstream Maltese newspaper... who can blame us for choosing to go with all the invented bullshit instead? No wonder everyone is currently lapping up stories which are either completely fabricated... or else random samples of idle village gossip, just thrown out there without the tiniest shred of evidence or even substantiation. 

These stories are much more fun. It’s like watching your favourite series on TV: who cares that the dragons in Game of Thrones don’t exist anywhere but the imagination of George R.R. Martin? That is entirely the point of fiction... it’s meant to entertain, not convince.

‘News’, of course, is supposed to be the clean opposite of that. When it comes to journalism, the litmus test is – or should I say, WAS - ‘credibility’. Not just of the story itself; but also of the journalist who reports it, and the news source where it appears. There was, however, always another consideration when dealing with ‘real news’: it was also meant to be ‘relevant’.

Apply that to the Birkirkara shitter story, and see where it takes us. Was it credible? Heck, yeah. Was it relevant? Erm... perhaps. If the phantom shitter turned out to be a member of parliament who had only just voted to increase penalties for crimes against public decency, for instance... then yes, we’d all see the relevance in that.

The truth, however, was that it was a random nobody who very clearly suffered from mental health issues. Exactly why his personal problems should have been so voyeuristically exposed is anyone’s guess.

Still, however, that story did at least pass half the litmus test... which is more than can be said for 90% of what is being reported in the media right now.

This morning, for instance, I read a story about how David Thake – Radio 101 host and PN candidate – chose to air street gossip about a presumed ‘affair’ between Health Minister Chris Fearne and the Foundation for Medical Services CEO Carmen Ciantar. As with the ‘Chris Cardona-brothel’ allegations, Thake supplied not a jot of evidence to suggest that this affair was really happening. The simple fact that he heard someone say so – anyone, anywhere – was deemed sufficient. 

That, however, is where the similarity with Daphne’s equally unsubstantiated story ends. Daphne at least stuck to her guns, and continues to insist that her version of events is correct. Thake? Not so much.

“I only wanted a clarification,” was his rather defensive reaction when both Fearne and Ciantar denied the claim (the latter threatening to sue). Which can be roughly translated as: “I didn’t know if the gossip I heard was true or not; so I thought I’d just blurt it out as loudly as I could in public... this way, 90% of the people listening to the programme would simply accept it as fact (as they did with Cardona). After all, the purpose of ‘news’ is not to inform people about credible, relevant issues... it’s only to damage our political adversaries as much as possible...”

Honestly: how can you not love that kind of approach to journalism?  It is guaranteed to spice up your news. And from the journalists’ point of view... it also spells an instant end to the phenomenon previously known as ‘a slow news day’. Not much happening that is worth reporting? Who cares? Just make some stuff up on the spot – or, if you lack the imagination, get some other people to make it up for you – and run with it on the pretext that you are ‘seeking clarification’. 

Suddenly, there are no limits to what you can or cannot publish. And because so many people have come to regard ‘the news’ precisely as ‘entertainment’... as long as your invented story tickles the smuttiest side to the public’s fancy, it will be believed.

So come on, folks: don’t hold back. It isn’t fair to let the Daphnes and the David Thakes have all this fun on their own. And besides: there’s no actual skill involved in repeating the first rumour you hear at the local grocery, you know. This is arguably the best thing about ‘fake news’: it is much more democratic. Just about anyone can dream up literally any sort of shit about other people, and then repeat it in public. You don’t need to be a ‘journalist’... or indeed anything at all, other than a bigmouth.  

Which (let’s face it) is what we all are anyway. Shooting our mouths off about bullshit is one of the few things we are collectively extremely gifted at as a nation. Why, just look at the impressive array of fake news we have managed to concoct and circulate recently. We’ve had around four dozen conspiracy theories since Christmas alone... and each one wackier and more laughable than the previous.

Remember the Afriqiyah hijack last December, for instance? All those ‘unanswered questions’ that convinced so many people that the entire event must have been masterminded by Joseph Muscat – through John Dalli’s Libya connections, of course (how else?) – for no other reason than to give his own government a timely little ego boost? No, wait... was it to smuggle Plutonium for the secret nuclear device with which the Axis of Evil would ransom the world for... ONE... MILLION... DOLLARS? 

Either way, it doesn’t matter. No one is talking about it anymore, only eight weeks later. Could it be because all the supposedly ‘unanswered questions’ started being ‘answered’ the moment the court hearings got underway... and every last pillar supporting this absurd conspiracy was eroded to nothing before our very eyes?

Or maybe it was because another conspiracy theory arose to take its place. The Great Power Cut Swindle. 

Never mind that ‘random interruption of power supply’ has been a constant, regular and depressing occurrence in this country for the past 40 years (which is literally as long as I can remember)... suddenly, the fact that we had two near country-wide power failures in quick succession – while no different from any number of similar outages in the past – was inexplicable enough to warrant an entire episode of the X-files. 

Once again, we were all encouraged to believe that both these incidents were concocted by the Labour government... this time, to be able to have something to bash the Nationalists with for a change.  (It was the interconnector, you see? And whose idea was that? Sure wasn’t Joseph’s. Etc. Etc.)

Of course, none of that answers why we were relying so heavily on the interconnector (which provided some 75% of Malta’s energy at the time) in the first place. Could it be that the failure of the Labour government to build an operational new power station within two years – a self-imposed deadline, which was also a core electoral promise – led us to rely on the PN’s strategy (which even Labour thought was a bad idea)?

If so, that would only prove that this childish obsession with conspiracy theories is not the sole preserve of the Nationalist Party. Now, we even have Konrad Mizzi claiming that the trust fund he set up in Panama – you know, that small news item which caused shockwaves across the entire European continent, and resulted in the resignation of at least one prime minister – was ... ‘fake news’. Like, um, it didn’t really happen, or something... 

And Mizzi said this even as he himself presented an audit investigation that confirms that the news was all along very real: i.e., that the fund really existed, and that he really was registered as co-owner (which really did make him the only serving European Cabinet member to be directly implicated in the scandal), etc., etc.

Which part of that was ‘fake’, exactly? Because it is not in the nature of ‘fake’ things to also be ‘real’, you know. Those two qualities – fake, real, real, fake, that sort of thing – cannot coexist within the same entity. Otherwise, you could conceivably come away with the idiotic impression that someone could be both a ‘real’ and ‘fake’ Energy Minister at the same time. See? It’s not... even....

... possible. Hmm. Oh, well. As I was saying, perhaps it’s a good thing we live in a ‘post-truth’ world. The truth, after all, can be a little inconvenient at times.