How to de-bias your media consumption
The US Presidential election might have been swayed by the influence of Russian propaganda trolls and the Brexit referendum was driven by both sides exaggerating the consequences (good or bad) of the UK leaving the EU. But thank goodness we can learn from past mistakes.
Since their failures in 2016, newspapers, TV and internet media organisations put much higher scrutiny on their sources and check the factual basis of opinion pieces and expert analyses. Meanwhile organisations like Facebook, Twitter, and Google are improving their filters to avoid spreading fake news and propaganda. And the biggest benefit of 2016 has been that the public now consumes media much more carefully since it is more alert to the dangers of fake news.
Who am I kidding… of course none of that happened.
Just look at the current debate about Theresa May’s Brexit deal that was shattered in the House of Commons three weeks ago. Before the deal was scheduled to be voted on in November, the Alliance of British Entrepreneurs (ABE) sent letters to every MP urging them to vote against the deal and move the country towards an exit under World Trade Organisation rules. Their open letter, reprinted in the Telegraph and other conservative outlets, and reported on in City AM and the Guardian , amongst others, claims to have been signed by more than 200 entrepreneurs. But apparently, no-one seemed to check who these 200 people are. While there are a handful of prominent entrepreneurs on the list, like Numis founder Oliver Hemsley, JD Wetherspoon chairman Tim Martin and Better Capital founder John Moulton, the air gets awfully thin, once one looks beyond the ten or so prominent names on the list.
The website BrexitBalls, which is itself a highly partisan effort to factcheck Brexit lies and thus not the gold standard of journalism either, has tried to look through the signatories of the open letter and the people behind ABE:
The three founders of the ABE are Tom Bohill, Phil Valori, and Edward Harden, founders of “JustSeats” a company with an annual turnover of £0.
One signatory is Rachael Furness, Director of Hitvo Ltd., a dormant company that exists since 2013 but has total assets of £579. Another signatory is David Furness, living in Cheshire just like Rachael and Director at Rapierstar Ltd., another effectively dormant company.
Then there are Jason Mark Rutter, managing director of Jason Mark Rutter Ltd. and Geoff Oborne, owner of Geoff Oborne Gardening Ltd. – a company that does not exist. And finally, there is John Davies, owner of Manufexl in West Glamorgan. Apparently not only Manufexl doesn’t exist, but neither does Mr. Davies.
All of this is not to ridicule the ABE – well, maybe a little bit. The ABE has the full right to put on their signatories list whoever they want and to publish their opinions wherever they can. But I wish journalists would do a better job factchecking their sources because reporting on these organisations while repeating their claim that these groups represent the backbone of British commerce is not the standard of care that I expect from a reputable journalist or newspaper.
In the meantime, all we as part of the public can do is to be vigilant ourselves. This means relying on high quality news sources (like the Telegraph or the Guardian) but at the same time reading these news sources with a good deal of scepticism. I know we all have busy lives and cannot factcheck every article we read, so I recommend a simple way to “debias” your newsfeed. Ever since the surprising outcome of the Brexit referendum in 2016, I make it a point to read newspapers on both sides of the divide. Every day, I read the Guardian on the left and the Telegraph on the right. This way, the Telegraph puts a check on the Guardian’s editorial bias and the Guardian puts a check on the Telegraph’s editorial bias. Having done this now for more than two years, I can tell you that it is still surprising to me how often some news stories get ignored by one side or the other and how different the same public statements and political outcomes are interpreted. Getting into this habit certainly made me a more informed citizen and, I believe, also a better investor since my personal biases are less likely to influence my interpretation of geopolitical events.