By Michael Breen
During the G20 in Seoul last month, a British journalist scooped his rivals with a story claiming that security forces were on ``red alert” because of a ``bizarre” North Korean plan to attack the summit with ``balloons filled chemical and biological weapons.”
More exciting and intelligible than the real G20 news ― financial safety nets, currency wars ― this theme got picked up by other British papers.
The story, however, was fabricated. Police had made no announcement. North Korea had admitted nothing. No citizen had stumbled upon a man with a false beard fumbling with balloons. The ``news” was, in the proper sense of the term, a story.
Given local sensitivity about ``false” reporting in the international media, you would expect an alert patriot to have jumped on this one. But there was no protest, no online abuse.
That was because this story did no damage, as might, say, a sincere analysis in the Financial Times or The Wall Street Journal predicting gloom for the Korean economy. The ``truth” for patriotic media monitors concerns the impact of news coverage, not its veracity.
The way such stories work is very subtle. This one was based on a truth: the plot may not have been proved but, yes, it is true it was alleged. That happened in August by a North Korean defector on a website. (That fact, which should have been enough for the claim to be discounted, was tucked in lower down in the article). Further, the account was wrapped in truth: government officials were quoted on ``concerns about security” (a no-brainer for the G20). There was also the appearance of truth in that such a plot matches assumptions about North Korea. Finally ― and this is important ― the reporter surely knew the players, the alleged villains and the intelligence agencies in the South, would never step forward to issue a denial or sue the paper.
But the net effort was a lie, deliberately and skillfully perpetrated.
So, here’s a question. How can news reporters, who are called upon to report with accuracy, engage in such blatant fabrication? And who among them does it?
Welcome to the part of journalism where intense competition has undermined loyalty to truth. Once upon a time, when newspapers were young, the serious press which provided information to decision-makers about shipping and trade and whatever else mattered, was distinct from the ``popular” press which served up rumor and scandal.
Now those lines have blurred.
It happens in two ways: one is, as with the non-existent chemical balloon attack, a false conclusion is squeezed out of true facts; the other is the massaged or entirely manufactured supporting detail and quotes ― ``color,” as reporters call it.
The latter crime, making up quotes, is hard to detect. In my experience, American reporters are more trustworthy in this regard. They do it when they’re cracking up, getting lazy, or under pressure to be the best. Many British journalists, on the other hand, do it more freely because they are trained to entertain first and be accurate second. (As unfair as this may be for honest reporters, for foreign news among British print media, I only trust Reuters and the Financial Times).
Not that I don’t read the others. They are very readable. For the popular press, foreign news is seldom relevant. The widest circulating British newspaper, The Sun, for example, has one foreign correspondent. For serious newspapers, however, it clearly is.
Thus, getting back to the G20, while some reporters in Seoul in November wanted to know what was being discussed, others were only there for the demos or in case their country’s prime minister made a gaffe or trod on a North Korean chemical-filled balloon.
Michael Breen is an author, former foreign correspondent and the chairman of Insight Communications, a public relations consulting company. He can be reached at mike.breen@insightcomms.com.
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