OPINION - Reuters and the trap of misinformation

By Ahmet Alioglu

- The author is a political analyst

ISTANBUL (AA) - Questions on journalism ethics, neutrality, professionalism, and accuracy have shadowed international media outlets and journalists’ coverage of Türkiye and its political dynamics for the past few years.

A recent striking example is Reuters fake reporting on unsubstantiated allegations that anti-corruption authorities in the US and Sweden are reviewing a complaint claiming that the Swedish affiliate of a US company promised to pay tens of millions of dollars in kickbacks if a son of Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan helped it secure a dominant market position in the country.

It is understood that exclusive stories based on an investigative effort are undoubtedly the pursuit of every media outlet aiming to offer unique and valuable news to its audience.

However, many news agencies commit a fatal mistake when they intentionally or accidentally apply little or no basic verification to the claims they pass on to their audiences.

Instead, they sometimes merely rely on other media reports, which themselves frequently solely cite other media reports.

The point of origin of the Reuters story, once traced back through the complex chain of links, is based on an allegation by someone the writer called “a person familiar with the matter.”

Undoubtedly, this method is journalistically and professionally not valid, reliable, or accurate. Rather, it is nothing but a thinly sourced claim from a person or entity.

It’s rather perplexing, ironic, and paradoxical, to the extent that one can hardly digest; Reuters explicitly and provocatively states that it doesn’t validate the allegations that it based the whole story on. One wonders how a 171-year-old international media agency jeopardizes its reputation and credibility.

Among other ethical and structural faults of this sort of journalism by Reuters, the lack of verification makes reporters easy targets for fraudsters and others seeking credibility and traffic by getting the press to cite their claims and content.

In Türkiye, the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) is notorious for such tactics. Recently, Germany arrested two Turkish journalists working for Turkish daily Sabah on a complaint filed by FETO members.

The reporters were later released as it turned out that FETO was merely trying to defame the news outlet.

In this context one can hardly perceive coincidence, innocence, or neutrality in Reuters’ story. Interestingly, the Reuters’ story comes at a sensitive time in bilateral relations between Ankara and Stockholm.

Türkiye has blocked Sweden’s bid to join NATO, accusing the Nordic country of providing refuge to alleged terrorists and asserting that its membership application will be held up until Sweden takes concrete measures to support Türkiye’sfight against the PKK terror group and agrees to swiftly extradite suspects.

The timing of the Reuters report is also not a mere coincidence, as it comes days before the NATO summit in Lithuania, raising questions about the main players in the story: the American and Swedish companies and the “person familiar with the matter.”

- Investigative reporting and ethics

Investigative reporting requires particular attention to objectivity and fairness. Whenever a journalist portrays a person or an entity in a negative light, they should make a real effort to get a response from the other side.

In this story, Reuters – and this might sound a bit ridiculous for a well-established news agency – says it was unable to independently verify whether President Erdogan and his son Bilal were aware of or involved in the alleged kickback scheme.

That leaves the story as little more than an imaginary scenario based on one person’s allegations and some internal company memos and emails.

As a matter of principle, whenever a news outlet intends to publish data, it should start off with diligent efforts to verify and validate the integrity of the dataset and explore ways to correct any inaccuracies.

Impartiality includes comprehensiveness, so no story is fair if it excludes or overlook facts of major significance, nor can it be fair if it misleads or deceives the reader.

In the Reuters report, it ultimately turns out that no kickbacks were paid and the Swedish company abruptly abandoned the project late last year, basically destroying the premise of the entire story and its narrative.

- Truth or viral content?

In late 2016, Oxford Dictionaries selected “post-truth” as the word of the year, defining it as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”

News outlets and agencies are meant to play a decisive role in the dissemination of quality and precise information to their audience.

This has become more challenging with the ambush of personal agendas, deceptions, misinformation, and other varieties of erroneous content flowing relentlessly over news platforms.

Journalists today should have an oath of commitment to sift through the mass of content being produced to separate fact from fiction, and to help spread the truth.

Their main objective should be to fact-check and disseminate accurate information, not the number of viewers or the popularity of their platforms.

Unfortunately, though, that is not the current reality of how news outlets treat unsubstantiated claims, online rumors, and deliberately fabricated content.

Lies spread much faster and farther than truths, and news organizations play a powerful role in making this happen by not debunking and scrutinizing the content.

Conventionally, there are two principal areas of media agenda-setting: it reports the news and, implicitly or explicitly, guides the audience on what to think about the news.

Media coverage dispatches various messages and appeals to audiences about the significance of a particular story, while framing the news leads gullible viewers to a certain response.

The Reuters story apparently and unequivocally aims to cast aspersions at President Erdogan and his son, regardless of all the solid evidence that refutes and debunks the baseless allegations.

- Gatekeeping

Professional media outlets unanimously agree that a protective shield is an inevitable necessity for gatekeeping.

With the limitless amount of information available, verification is an ethical and professional obligation that should occur by default.

Utilizing a range of hedging language and attribution formulations – “reportedly,” “claims,” “anonymous source” etc. – to convey the unverified nature of the information is not the ethical and professional route.

The rise of “fake news” and the propagation of doctored narratives online constitutes a serious challenge to publishers and platforms.

The question remains whether reliable methods will emerge in the next decade to block false narratives and allow the most accurate information to prevail.

Or will the quality and veracity of information online deteriorate due to the spread of unreliable, sometimes even dangerous, socially destabilizing ideas?