Peter Moore: Always beware of dubious news

I saw a quote from Abraham Lincoln. “Do not believe everything you read online”. Even I managed to spot this was fake, but how can I spot more subtle dodgy statements? The answer must be to question every news story. If it sounds too terrible to be true, it probably isn’t true.

Dubious claims did not start with the internet. In 1782 Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the United States, published a fake letter claiming the British were scalping American colonists. He even managed to make it look as though it came from a reputable newspaper, including realistic but false adverts. At the time, the British were negotiating with the new United States government. Making the Brits feel guilty might make them agree to terms more favourable to the US.

During the Second World War, the propagandist Lord Haw-Haw claimed that the German Navy had sunk HMS Drake, which must have been difficult since HMS Drake is in Devonport Dockyard.

More recently, a colleague of mine saw a patient with worrying symptoms. She refused to be examined or have any tests. He saw her several times and eventually referred her to a specialist despite the fact that she had refused the most basic assessment. When she saw the specialist, she still refused to cooperate. Eventually the symptoms became so severe she had to be admitted to hospital. As the GP and consultant had feared, she had cancer.

She then went to the local press, complaining that she had been back and forth to the GP and the hospital specialist, and they had done nothing. She even named the doctors involved. This looked terrible for both the GP and the consultant. She had conveniently missed out the fact that she had refused any examination or tests. The doctors took advice but were told that they could not make her refusal to cooperate public as this would breach medical confidentiality.

Love or hate Rachael Reeves, there was a recent story online claiming that she had visited the restaurant “Browns” and was too mean to pay the service charge. A journalist from a more reputable paper checked with the restaurant and with Rachael Reeve’s office. She had not visited Browns for many years.

Recently a 54-year-old woman was visited by the police after criticising Labour politicians on Facebook. “Come out, it’s the thought police,” screamed the Daily Mail headline. When I heard the story, I was dubious. It may be true, but are we hearing the whole story?

It turned out that she was not charged with any crime or interviewed under caution. Apparently, the police were obliged to visit to notify her that someone had accused her of harassment. They had left it for two days, giving priority to serious crimes. When they did visit, they found no case and took no action.

Today some of the fake news comes from Russia. A friend told me that President Zelensky of Ukraine had been syphoning off the money sent to help the war. It was claimed that he now owns a mansion in Florida, several in Ukraine, and some luxury yachts. I checked with a more reliable paper. A reputable journalist had checked all the Florida records and found no evidence that Zelensky had any properties. All the stories claiming he was embezzling the war funds were false and probably came from Russia. If Putin can undermine the west’s support for Ukraine by turning the public against the war, he will win. This would not work the other way round. Russian media is tightly controlled, and any protest against the “special military operation” would be met with arrests and murders.

It is important to maintain a healthy level of scepticism in any news story. Both Benjamin Franklin and Putin were trying to manipulate public opinion. A rather boring story about the police finding no evidence and taking no action when an innocent woman was accused of harassment would not make a great headline.

Not every piece of dubious news is as obvious as Abraham Lincoln complaining about the internet.