Harry Shannon
We’re hearing a lot about fake news. To hear Donald Trump call it, you’d think that it’s the mainstream media that are centrist or lean to the left who are guilty of misreporting or even making up stories. Of course he produces no evidence to back up his claim. Nor does he comment on the accuracy of reports on the right-wing Fox network.
So take a look at this article in The Guardian. One of the most interesting columnists in the UK, George Monbiot, was involved in writing a report called Land for the Many. It listed policies, including efforts to make housing more affordable, that the authors argued would benefit most of the population. But of course they would not be so good for billionaires.
Monbiot described how five major right-wing national newspapers attacked the report, including the false claim that Land for the Many recommended a capital gains tax on people’s primary homes. Monbiot noted there were ‘dozens of other falsehoods’ in the newspapers’ stories, and he gave several examples.
I was reminded of the quote: ‘Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one’ (attributed to A. J. Liebling). As Monbiot put it in his article: ‘If a newspaper is owned by a billionaire, be suspicious of every word you read in it.’