Politicians creating fake news

We have a frequent problem with politicians who create fake news, with the goal of gaining power, getting back at their critics, or creating a particular image. They do that through social network in order to bypass the intermediaries – the journalists who check the information – was emphasized at the panel ‘’Fake news and elections in the region’’, which was organized by BBC News in Serbian. 

Talking about the Facebook and Twitter posts by Hašim Tači, in which he announced that Jamaica has recognized Kosovo, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Koha, Agron Bajrami, stated that in that case, the most problematic was the time difference.

- We have contacted the media in Kingston, as well as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Jamaica. It all happened late, however, so we relayed the president’s statements, and as early as the next day the story was done properly. In this case, I don’t believe that even Tači knew this was fake news, because he eventually embarrassed himself. One day, maybe, Wikileaks will reveal what was happening, stated Bajrami. 

Vildana Selimbegović, the editor-in-chief of Sarajevo’s Oslobodjenje, looked back on the news of the death of Ratko Mladić which had recently reverberated throughout the region.

- It is said that we are a media in which you can read what Bosnians, Croatians and Serbs have to say on the same topic. When everybody else rushes, we insisted that the news be correct. When the first portal published the news on Mladić’s death, the news circled the whole region in the next five minutes. During that time we checked the information at four of the most important sites and were the first to publish it as fake, stated the editor-in-chief.  

When asked by BBC journalist Aleksandar Miladinović, the moderator, if she had been sorry about the many clicks, Selimbegović answered negatively, emphasizing that it was more important that Oslobođenje keep its archaic, anti-fascist image.

- Anti-fascism is the fight against fake news, the editor-in-chief of Oslobođenje concluded.
Commenting on the situation in which the cabinet of Milo Đukanović accused the Montenegrin Oslobođenje of the sensationalist text on Twitter entitled ‘’Milo would have church under Vatican rule‘’, Marijana Bojanić, the executive director of the Vijesti Group, stated in a humorous way that she was pleased the president had finally discovered Twitter.

- ‘’We were the last to publish that analysis and passed it on authentically, and we asked the cabinet to comment on it. Since there was no answer, eventually we too conveyed it, and only then they remembered to say that it was fake news and that it was created by Vijesti. It was important to target Vijesti, and not the other media’’, the executive director of Vijesti explained.

The editors-in-chief of Oslobođenje, Koha and Vijesti used the opportunity to first of all thank BBC on the cooperation they had established within the project ‘’My World’’. It concerns a revolutionary global program for the younger audience, which explains the stories behind the news and gives them the facts and information so they can decide for themselves on the important issues.

V. Maričić

Foto: FoNet/ Zoran Mrđa

Šulc: The young get eight minutes on the news

Ana Šulc, a research associate of Reuters Institute for Journalism Studies, presented the results on the survey concerning the news consumption during the elections, emphasizing the fact that 72% of the people had access to at least one info portal, which means that 25% had no news at all during the period of 6 weeks. The younger people spent around 8 minutes reading the news, while the older spent around 16 minutes. The results have also shown that younger people spent more time online, but they do not pay much attention to the news. 

The biggest challenge is getting to Vučić’s voters

The biggest challenge for the sites which deal with the analysis of truthfulness is getting to the citizens who are the target group of the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, as concluded in the second part of the panel discussion at the conference ‘’Fake news and elections in the region’’, organized by BBC in Serbian.

The conversation started by reminding of the recent ‘’fake news’’ that, when the eminent Financial Times had published the text on the economic growth of Serbia, first published in Serbia by Tanjug Agency, it turned out, after checking, to be a paid advertisement by the Finance Minister Siniša Mali, stated Vesna Radojević, the editor-in-chief of the portal Raskrikavanje.

- We are living in a paradox where digital media have to go offline and go on TV stations with national frequency, but of course that will not happen on RTS because we heard from their editors that they always check the news, and their main source of the news is precisely Tanjug!’’, the editor of Raskrikavanje stated. The editor-in-chief of Instinomer, Milena Popović, agreed with this statement, and added that she thinks it is ‘’the responsibility of professional journalists’’.

- We need to find a way to get to the readers of Informer, even if we have to knock on their doors and read it to them, they are our citizens, Popović said and added that today we are exposed to the industry of creating a parallel reality which is made up of political participants led by Vučić, whose statements have been checked the most, as well as those made by media and state institutions.   

- The way it works is that political participants come up with false information, then the media follow up, and, finally, which is most dangerous, we have institutions which take part in fabricating reality, Popović stated.  

- The editor-in-chief of the Fake News Tragač, Stefan Janjić, emphasized that, in the fight for greater visibility among the citizens, they mostly rely on their readers who share their news on social networks, he singled out as the most important researched news during last year the one on the owners of Albanian bakeries in Borča.

- All that has shown where misinformation and the lack of responsibility of the journalists can lead to – that you bring an entire group of people in front of a bakery of a man who is a citizen of this country, that is the most extreme example of the power of misinformation, Janjić said.

S. Kosorić