When people talk about fake news, they often say the problem is social media. This characteristically lets mainstream media off the hook. But fake news - such as security guard sex in quarantine hotel - reported by ‘legitimate’ news sites spreads across media. A thread

I’m not sure who the first journalist was who reported rumour that security guard caught covid in Victorian quarantine hotel by having sex with guest. People are saying it was Herald Sun. Whoever it was, they did it without verifying if information was credible - true - or not.

One of the most important steps in journalism is verification of source information. Whether journo who spread the rumour heard it from a mate or just made it up, they didn’t have evidence that it was true (because it’s not true). Yet they still published it, and then it spread.

As I’ve found with my research, journos have their own narratives, sometimes politically motivated, and they include and emphasise information that fits that narrative. The ‘security guard sex’ fit the ‘let’s bash Andrews’ narrative so it was thrown into the mix with no checking.

Technically, no other journalist or commentator should be publishing rumours printed by other outlets without doing their own verification. But that’s where the in-group culture of mainstream media becomes a major problem. They trust each other, are friends with each other.

They all think journalists are broadly ‘credible’. Even when those journalists work for outlets like Murdoch who are known to have a political agenda and a slippery relationship with quality journalism. They still think their journalistic integrity is in tact - so they trust them

This means once false information is published or broadcast by one outlet, it is picked up as ‘credible’ and not verified by other outlets. The story is now ‘out there’. Audience assumes it’s true because we believe the media wouldn’t publish it if it wasn’t. We get tricked.

The other influence on the spread of false news is there is no serious consequence for publishing unchecked information. We can complain on social media. They get a mention on Media Watch. But the damage is already done. Public have accepted false news as fact.

It’s incredibly hard to change the public narrative once demonstrably false information has been repeated by various news outlets. Even when you try to correct the record, the public shrug and say ‘they’re just lying to make up for their lies’. Truth becomes an abstract concept.

Don’t forget that the ‘Dan Andrews has bungled hotel quarantine’ attack which has been unrelenting across all outlets was spread despite Andrews saying over and over again ‘let’s wait to see what the inquiry finds’. Well the inquiry found first infected person was night manager.

There is no evidence of wrong doing with this night manager. We know how infectious this disease is. This person could have walked through some droplets in the air, in lobby, picked it up off a surface. There is some evidence security guards weren’t being careful enough with PPE.

The night manager passed on the virus to security guards and that’s how it got into the community. This is not how the public will remember the ‘Victorian wave’. They’ll remember Dan Andrews being attacked over private security guards hired to guard guests in hotel quarantine.

All this stuff matters. It also matters that when social media complains about terrible journalism, we are the ones framed as the villains. We can see how the media uses rumours to attack political leaders unfairly. We can see the political motives here. We are not stupid. End.