Kenan Malik - Fake news will thrive as long we are happy to see only what we want to see
Two stories last week
illustrate how we often see what we expect, or want, to see. The first is the
tragic story of Dutch teenager Noa Pothoven. Sexually assaulted and raped as a
young girl, Pothoven’s pain led to post-traumatic stress disorder, depression
and anorexia. So consumed was she by
her mental distress that in 2017 she contacted an “end of life” clinic to
request euthanasia. It refused, because of her age. For a time, she was in
hospital so she could be fed intravenously, having become dangerously
underweight. Earlier this year, however, she decided that she wanted no further
treatment and refused all food and fluids. Her parents and doctors agreed not
to force-feed her.
Last Sunday, she died at home, aged 17. It’s a heartbreaking
and unsettling story. What it wasn’t was an account of a teenager being “legally euthanised” by
the state. But that was how much of the world’s press reported it. It became a
shocking tale, not just of the tragedy of Pothoven’s life but also of the
immorality of the state in helping a vulnerable teenager to end it. Only
through the efforts of journalists such as Naomi
O’Leary, correspondent with Politico Europe, who took the
trouble of reading the original Dutch reports of the case, did the truth
emerge.
The misreporting can
be seen as another instance of “fake news”. Certainly, there was shoddy
journalism in the failure to check sources or even to read the Dutch press. But the wider context
of the distortions is important, too. There is a fraught debate in many
countries about euthanasia and assisted suicide. The tragedy of Pothoven’s life
and death revealed, for many, the ugly reality of such policies. “Euthanasia
and assisted suicide are a defeat for all,” tweeted
the pope on Wednesday. Many journalists and readers may have refrained
from asking deeper questions about the initial account because the misreporting
allowed them to see what they wanted to see.
Much of what we call fake news may
be like this – the result not of a desire to lie, but to reduce complex
problems to simple truths....
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“Seeing what you want to see” is also at the heart of the second story – that
of the “Central Park Five”. The original story is 30 years old. It has returned
to the news because of a new Netflix drama, When They See Us,
broadcast last week. On 19 April 1989, a
28-year-old white woman, Trisha Meili, was beaten and raped while jogging in
New York’s Central Park. She was in a coma for 12 days and still has no
recollection of the events.
That same night, five
young men – four African American and one Hispanic – were arrested and charged
with rape, assault and attempted murder, as well robbery and riot. There was no
forensic evidence – DNA, fingerprints, blood, or semen – linking any of the
suspects to the crime. Under coercion, they confessed to being accomplices to
the rape, confessions they later retracted. All were convicted and received
sentences of between five to 15 years.
In 2002, murderer and
rapist Matias Reyes confessed to raping Meili. DNA and other evidence confirmed
his guilt. The Central Park Five, having spent up to 13 years behind bars, were
cleared and their convictions vacated....
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/08/fake-news-will-thrive-as-long-as-we-are-happy-to-see-what-we-want-to-see
