Throughout the media, the truth is fast becoming an endangered species. Meanwhile, in the political sphere, it seems that populist figures are increasingly uninterested in presenting the truth with facts, preferring to spin their chosen narratives with scant regard for the accuracy of what they say.
The phenomenon appears to be growing, as populist politicians seem to increasingly believe that the public don’t care if their claims are proved to be sensationalist and/or wildly inaccurate.
Reform UK’s blatant disregard for the truth is illustrated by spectacular examples that have come recently from Zia Yusuf, the Reform UK figurehead. As head of their DOGE initiative, he has been peppering social media with claims about the so-called “wasteful spending” that Reform is uncovering. For example, Yusuf claims that Kent County Council ‘spends taxpayers money on TV licences for migrants’. His claims have been picked up by other Reform MPs Sarah Pochin and Lee Anderson and amplified with scant regard for fact-checking. A recent article by East Anglia Bylines elegantly called out their ignorance.
Another phenomenon is propaganda for clicks. Rupert Lowe MP earns money from posting on X and his account is a daily stream of outrage clickbait, the more sensational the better.
How the mainstream press and TV amplify these stories
The press increasingly report and amplify these claims with scant regard to checking accuracy. In the TV licence claim above, the Daily Express reported Yusuf’s claim unchecked, even though it, along with several other claims, has been comprehensively debunked by more balanced sources. Lazy, sensationalist reporting is now a staple of several newspapers. I have never agreed with the political stance of the Daily Telegraph, but growing up it was undeniably a quality newspaper. Once a paper of record, its output is now often extremist, appealing to an increasingly detached, dwindling audience. A recent example is where they had to take down a sympathy article about a couple on a combined salary of £345,000 who can no longer afford their five annual holidays because of VAT on school fees. The story was rapidly shown to be entirely false. In all honesty, even if it were true, I’m amazed that the Telegraph would write about such a topic anyway. Surely few would empathise with the plight of only affording four holidays a year and paying private school fees?
The lazy front-page headline
Another bugbear for me is the lazy front-page headline. A salutary exercise, which I conduct daily, is to review the BBC summary of the front pages and what they lead on. If you try it for a couple of weeks you will see that some papers, especially the Mail and Express, have a regular approach to their front-page leads. In essence, they find a politician with a message they approve of and lead on an alleged quote from them, without any apparent evaluation.
A variation is to cite a so-called ‘expert’ (or group of them; for example, so-called ‘boffins’ if science is involved), without validating their real competence. The Mail and Express also like headlines claiming that there is “fury”, so a common headline in either will claim that an unspecified group are “furious” based on a quote or the unspecified expert. It’s risible that anyone believes this stuff.
Disregard for the truth not confined to Reform
Reform is not the only party guilty of this disregard for accuracy. The Conservatives Robert Jenrick and Chris Philp regularly produce the most ‘Mr Angry’ videos for social media. They appear to be permanently accompanied by a camera operator, posting something almost daily. I wonder how they fund this.
Labour politicians, too, are not immune. Two particular annoyances for me are the constant chanting of certain mantras. With controversy over Labour’s reform to disability benefits, the incessant repetition that Labour is “delivering for working people” is an irritation for me and an insult to those physically unable to work. I find Keir Starmer’s claim jarring that he is listening, while implementing policies or using rhetoric which I utterly oppose.
It’s increasingly difficult to believe any of them, which I find worrying. I believe that we may as well all give up if we start to accept that ‘they’re all the same’.
What can be done to challenge the lies?
So what can we do? It’s easy to feel we have reached a tipping point and there is no hope to return to more facts and less spin.
Firstly, we must all continue to hone our critical thinking skills. It’s clear that many politicians don’t care much about accuracy if a claim suits their narrative. In addition, with the increased use of AI, it’s much easier to fake things – social media posts, for example – to promote a false message. This is particularly important when we look at items we either strongly agree or disagree with. It’s tempting to repost these on social media with a smart comment, but every time we help to circulate something false via our own confirmation bias, we become part of the problem. Questions to ask are “Who says so?”, “What is their evidence?”, “Can they prove they said or did it?”
Key for me, too, is to target who we think we can influence. I doubt that Starmer is going to listen to my complaints, despite all the listening he claims to do. I think though that my local MP will (if he is wise), so I can let him know when I see something that’s egregious to me.
It’s a thankless task, but I also keep trying to influence friends who believe what they read in the right-wing press to question more what they see and not accept it at face value. I’m not giving up despite their reluctance to listen to challenges.
I’d encourage everyone who reads this to reflect and redouble their efforts to apply the suggestions I mentioned earlier. The upside of social media is that we now have more scope to be spreaders of truth ourselves, so having a range of credible sources and helping to promote them is vital.I encourage you to find your own small chosen group of trusted reporters and commentators and make a point of promoting their work: publications like the Bylines Network, The New World (formerly TheNew European) as well as assorted social media commentators. We have to counteract the tsunami of disinformation we are bombarded with. It’s a titanic struggle (hopefully not a Titanic one) but I believe it’s one we have to win.
