One of the best-read articles on Behind Local News last year was from Manchester Evening News political editor Jennifer Williams on the drip-drip of criticism from politicians which threatens to undermine the free press in the UK. Six months on, Max Channon, live and trending editor at PlymouthLive, reports on how politicians are continuing to make matters worse…

Max Channon

We need to talk. Specifically, we need to talk about fake news, scaremongering, Brexit, everyday fascism — and the weather.

Pretty much every time Plymouth Live shares a story on social media about Brexit, or the weather, it will be greeted by the same wall of white noise, being screamed by the same boo-boys (and girls), spouting the same scorn and vitriol — about a news service and content provider that they don’t have to pay a penny for.

Knives are sharpened and angry (or just idle) fingers are poised to hammer out accusations of ‘fake news’ and ‘scaremongering’, to be hurled at us via Facebook and Twitter, every time we post a story about these two hot (or cold) topics.

For weeks, we’ve been reporting long range weather forecasts, from a number of sources, predicting temperatures could plunge towards the end of January and bring an increased chance of snow. And for weeks we’ve been accused of spreading fake news and fear-mongering, despite the fact we were merely reporting what experts were saying.

Does the media ‘sensationalise’ what these experts say?

If we’re being completely honest, we’d have to put our hands up and say ‘yes, we sometimes do’. There is a huge amount of interest in the weather and they are often our best-read stories — but only if they have an angle that captures the public’s imagination. When that happens, we’ve struck gold, and these stories will literally be read by hundreds of thousands of readers.

Some of our critics will be delighted to know that our industry faces a massive struggle to make online news sustainable and will be rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of some news websites ceasing to exist… but if news organisations disappear, you can be sure nobody else will be there to report on and highlight issues that really do matter to local communities, with anywhere near the depth and diligence that we do.

My advice? Try reading beyond the headline — and employ some critical thinking.

The fact of the matter is this: eye-catching headlines are a hook used to make people want to read the story. Sometimes, that helps get a serious and important warning or message to the widest audience possible.

A headline is there for marketing purposes, and the articles they are ‘selling’ should leave the reader with enough information about the sources we’re reporting to apply a little critical thinking of their own and decide for themselves themselves how much faith they should attach to the opinions, predictions or ‘facts’ being reported on.

Obviously, when we’re reporting on predictions and forecasts, nobody — not even the experts — are infallible. Sometimes these reports end up being correct, and at other times they’re not.

But, as much as I hate to say ‘I told you so’, we find ourselves here, at the end of January, with snow and ice on the roads and temperatures well below average — just as we reported we could weeks ago, to a barrage of abuse.

We can’t take any credit for getting it ‘right’. I’m not a meteorologist and nor are any of my colleagues.

The credit must go the Exeter-based Met Office, with its multi-million pound supercomputers running weather models and constantly monitoring variables and phenomenon that I’m not even going to pretend that I understand — and its army of experts, who have spent years studying meteorology and weather patterns.

Yet every weather story we post will be greeted with cynicism and derision, aimed both at us and the experts at the Met Office — with many readers saying they only trust amateur armchair forecasters like the Facebook page UK Southwest Storm Chasers ltd.

No disrespect to the Storm Chasers team (they know far more about the weather than I do) but much of what they do is simply interpreting data from the Met Office — and rarely do they put their heads above the parapets and predict long range weather patterns.

Yet, we find ourselves in the situation where our readers trust Dean in his bedroom in Plymouth (no offence, Dean) more than the team of meteorologists at the Met Office’s state of the art headquarters in Exeter. Perhaps this isn’t surprising when political heavyweights like Michael Gove espouse the view that ‘people in this country have had enough of experts’… which brings us neatly onto that most divisive of topics, Brexit.

A few days ago, my colleague Edward Oldfield — a vastly experienced journalist who has worked in regional news for decades — reported that Plymouth City Council has been discussing the prospect of martial law being imposed on the streets of Plymouth and the rest of the UK, in the advent of a ‘no-deal’ Brexit.

The response on social media was as swift as it was predictable, in this the era of President Donald Trump.

‘Fake news’, ‘scaremongering’, ‘lies’ came the hysterical screams on social media. Plymouth Conservative MP Johnny Mercer, in a now deleted Tweet, even got involved, commenting: “What?! But it was in @Plymouth_Live”.

Let us be clear: these are comments about a factually correct report, by our local democracy reporter, accurately quoting what Plymouth Labour politicians — including city council leader Tudor Evans — were discussing in a council meeting.

Whether the politicians involved in this discussion were playing party politics and trying to whip up fear for their own agendas, or are genuinely concerned that a ‘no-deal’ Brexit will plunge this country into chaos, is really not for us to say — but it is our duty to report it.

It is our duty to report these things so you, the reader, can make an informed decision about who you want to vote for at the next election.

Yet even a senior local politician was quick to take a pot shot at us for reporting what was going on in a council meeting.

In fairness to Mr Mercer, when my colleague Sarah Waddington pointed out Plymouth Live had “reported what was discussed in a full council meeting” and that “this was what councillors were debating as a result of other press coverage”, the MP replied “fair one” — and deleted his Tweet.

However, by then the damage to our reputation had already been done. A little more faith in the impartiality and integrity of the free press had been eroded. More people — often with agendas of their own to push — are jumping on the bandwagon and accusing the media of pushing an agenda.

When we report that the UK’s leading food retailers have written to MPs warning them that in a ‘no-deal’ Brexit they will run short of some fresh foodsbecause of disruptions to the supply chain — and that customers will be faced with empty shelves and soaring prices — we are again accused of ‘scaremongering’ and spreading ‘fake news’ because have an agenda.

Do we have an agenda? Yes, of course we do.

Our agenda is to keeping our readers informed and entertained. Attempting to suppress a legitimate news story, such as dire warnings being sent to MPs by industry leaders, purely because it doesn’t support a particular political bias, suggests a much darker agenda.

Yes, it could just be cognitive dissonance causing a knee-jerk howl of impotent rage on social media — or it could be a deliberate attempt to undermine the credibility of the media, because they are reporting third-party views and opinions that undermine or don’t match their own.

But let’s make no bones about it: there’s a name for people who try to suppress news that doesn’t conform to their agenda, a name for people who try to smear the credibility of those who report it.

They are called fascists.

Don’t be a fascist.