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| -Image created by Microsoft Copilot |
The long running TV Series The X- Files used to tell us that “The Truth is Out There.” All I can say is. It might be, but Good Luck finding it. Here are some of the reasons why.
1. The Rise of Social Media
For the last two decades we have seen the rise of social media and more and more people are turning digital sources for their news. While in some ways this is the true definition of a “free press” – almost anyone can voice their opinion or watch on a phone or computer, unrestricted by time or geography - provided they can get a signal and afford a device and a connection, this also poses some threats to the purpose of a free press – namely, to provide us with factual information upon which to base decisions. We shall look more closely at some of the pitfalls of social media in a moment, but let’s first look at what it’s doing to traditional media outlets.
2. Decline of Print Media
Traditional newspapers are among the first casualties of this process. Besides threatening the livelihoods of journalists and media proprietors, the reduction in their numbers and the concentration of the remainder in fewer and fewer hands means less diversity of opinion.
In the USA for example, more than
2,200 newspapers closed between 2005 and 2021, with many of the rest in steep
decline or cutting pages, publications and staff to survive. The Medill School of Journalism found that 43,000 journalists had lost their job between 2005 and 2023. In the UK 300 titles closed between 2009 and 2019. In Switzerland and The Netherlands newspapers report that they have lost over half their advertising revenue which is what pays for journalism and printing.
3. Undue Influence
Newspapers do not make their money from those few dollars you pay at the newsagent or kiosk, though it may help to cover distribution costs. It is advertisers who keep the presses running. The first time I realised what an influence they had was in the 1980s. Newly -minted Ms Magazine was pitched at the new class of educated women and covered important women’s issues of the day, rather than recipes, celebrity gossip and knitting patterns. It's advertising was abruptly withdrawn after it published controversial stories about abortion and women’s rights, which sent it into financial freefall.
Fortunately, it was able to survive by switching to a subscription model and was eventually bought by a feminist foundation which has continued to publish it quarterly. Others haven’t been so lucky. The very progressive Nation Review which came out in the 1970s and included investigative journalism on provocative topics - political scandals, pollution and an assault on the powerful sugar industry, had to shut down in 1981 after an economic downturn which caused a major sponsor to drop out.
4. Concentration of Ownership
A third byproduct of the declining fortunes of newspapers is that many ailing ones were amalgamated and bought up by a few proprietors, most notably Rupert Murdoch in Australia which at 65% is said to have the highest concentration of media ownership in the world. Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp now owns over 100 mastheads in Australia as well as Sky News (TV), magazines and publishing houses and digital services.
With such wide geographical coverage, not just in Australia, but throughout the English -speaking world, Murdoch has long been regarded as “the King Maker’ in Australian politics, where most independent voices and community newspapers have been lost. While this has worked to the advantage of this party or that – usually the conservatives, this failed during the last election, despite -or was it because of? - a large number of puff pieces on the Opposition leader and the papering over of political scandals. Other issues such as the state of the environment, news critical of major advertisers, local news, distant news such as the war in Gaza and the war in Sudan, along with alternative views on many issues continue to be under -reported.
Rupert Murdoch also owns 46% of the media in the USA including The Wall Street Journal and television stations such as Fox News which attracts 40% of viewers in prime time. In the USA 90% of the media - print, TV, Cable and Digital, is controlled by six major players.
Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos bought the influential Washington Post in 2013. This is the newspaper which broke the Watergate story - the one that led to the resignation of President Nixon. Until recently Bezos maintained a hands -off approach with respect to editorial content, but has recently begun to set editorial policy, insisting that it should now promote “personal liberties” and “free market” ideology, leaving little room for opposing views. For more on the situation in the USA, particularly with respect to Fox news click here.
Though News Corp's share in the UK is only around 33%, Murdoch owns influential newspapers such as The Sun, The Times and The Sunday Times as well as television and radio stations, cable and digital services and only three major players control 90% of of print reach and 40% of online news media.
These are among the reasons for loss of trust in traditional media which in turn has further contributed to increasing reliance on digital media.
6. Has the ‘Press” become too free?
Meanwhile, Social Media use is exploding with 5.25 billion people using it as at February 2025. In Australia penetration is even higher with 97.1% of people using the internet and 77.9 % using social media. Even newspapers are getting in on the act. Why not? Its news cycle is faster, it's available 24/7 and mostly free or almost free. It's full of graphics and videos and even the illiterate can participate. Nor are readers merely passive consumers of news. Now they can comment, do their own podcasts and videos and make their voices heard.
Unlike traditional media where people in a given area shared much the same newspaper, television and radio broadcasts and then had a common basis for discussion, this is no longer the case. The 'gatekeepers' are gone and there is no longer a central dispensing ‘authority’ for news and information. Regardless of how distorted it may have been, we no longer share the same reality. There is no longer a single viewpoint, but almost as many as there are individuals using the medium. In addition, all these offerings must not only compete against each other, but against all kinds of advertising, entertainment and other distractions.
In this
crowded space with so many voices clamouring for attention, more sensationalism and attractive or well -known faces draw more notice than well -reasoned
arguments. Shrill influencers drown out the cautious voices of experts. The use of algorithms -complex data gathering and analysis of past
usage, means that interest in a particular topic or site attracts more of the
same, thus reinforcing existing views, rather than challenging them. This
algorithm can also be gamed.
Unscrupulous actors will use such means for their own ends to make themselves heard above the cacophony and the loudest most persistent voices will win, regardless of the merit of their cause. We tolerate the use of algorithms for commercial purposes which is bad enough - I don't mind the odd suggestion when I am looking for birthday presents for the children and we know that advertising pays for the hugely expensive technology we are using, but it becomes positively dangerous when it comes to political views or in the promotion of unscientific medical news. It is especially disturbing when inflammatory rhetoric incited the January 6 Capitol riots in the USA or the Christchurch mosque bombing in which 50 people lost their lives.
Whose Free Speech?
On the subject of politics, the scandal surrounding Cambridge Analytica revealed the extent to which our personal data – things we innocently share and personal information obtained unknowingly from all our searches and interactions on platforms such as Facebook, had been used to send personally targeted messages to influence a political outcome. It is widely thought to have contributed to Donald Trump’s 2016 election win.
While the world was shocked to learn how far misuse of personal information had gone and that the social media platforms
were in fact, 'very large surveillance machines,' it has made users a whole lot
more skeptical and prompted some government action as well as by the platforms
themselves. Both X and Facebook have now banned political advertising, most likely to avoid further regulation by governments.
When Elon Musk bought Twitter in October 2022, he immediately sacked 500 workers and another 300 resigned. A combination of sackings and resignations meant that its workforce fell from 7,500 workers to 1,500. He also demanded real time data on Twitter’s 230 million users and suspended the accounts of 12 journalists and some anti -fascist accounts at the behest of right wing critics which had accused the old Twitter of bias against them, whereas critics of the right argued that Right Wing circles consistently posted more misleading information and were targeted for this reason.
In the name of "Free Speech" Musk restored previously banned accounts such as that of Climate Change denier and anti- “woke” crusader, Jordan Petersen and Donald Trump. Other changes included relaxation of the rules around “hate speech” –comments which were racist, sexist and so forth, and the prohibition on COVID 19 misinformation was lifted.
The accounts of other former Twitter users were “shadow -banned “ -that is, their accounts were still open but rarely seen by other users with the result that many former avid Twitter users defected to alternative platforms such as Bluesky instead.
The Rise of Misinformation and Disinformation
The problem has become more severe in recent years as social media platforms have shed their responsibilities with respect to Fact Checking, by which platforms removed erroneous material or extremely offensive material. After Elon Musk bought out Twitter in 2022, renaming it X and making it a private company, fact checkers were among those who were sacked and the remainder became part of the cyber safety unit, the team whose main job was to remove fake accounts and child abuse material.
As of Jan 7, this year Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta (Facebook) has followed suit with both now relying on user – based Community Notes to contradict erroneous information, whereas previously independent fact checkers had to investigate and verify before removing a site, now Community Notes are often biased in favour of the user’s perspective. Since they also depend on user engagement with a post, any amount of material can slip through without being detected as being false.
With the closure of independent fact checking service at RMIT in Melbourne, newspapers too have largely abandoned fact checking as well, though the Australian Associated Press (AAP) the Australian Branch of the Agence -Presse’ France, continues to maintain an in -house fact checking service as does Australia’s national broadcaster, the ABC.
The loss of such services means that
misinformation can be spread quickly and widely through numerous channels
without ever being challenged. The blurred line between fact and fiction has
also allowed people such as Trump to dismiss real news or unfavourable coverage as “Fake
News” even when independently verified.
This problem has only increased with the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI). If I started this post with reference to the TV series "The X -Files" let me now mention another one - "The Twilight Zone" which was about how developments in technology and psychology might impact our lives. Each episode begins with the words " you have now entered the Twilight Zone. From now on we control everything you see and hear...."
How AI is influencing what we see and hear
Artificial Intelligence is a huge growth industry with the potential to provide many benefits such as faster cancer screening, increased productivity and economic output, instant translation or increased agricultural yields, yet with the rise of Large Language models of Artificial Intelligence (AI) - and there were at least 20 of them at last count, strange things have started to happen with the reporting and transmission of information.
By way of example, on Media Watch (ABC, Australia 26/5/2025) there were reports of an instance where AI had been used to produce perfectly reasonable sounding copy for newspapers - duly syndicated across other newspapers, about a summer reading list of books by famous authors, except that the books did not exist. Although the Chicago Sun which published the list, duly sacked the writer and promised more transparency and oversight in future, the list had already been republished by another newspaper.
While understandable in the light of the financial situation which many newspapers find themselves in, it again makes them less credible when it comes to other news, particularly when there is no adequate human oversight.
Elon Musk has recently introduced his own AI fact checking service called Grok right into the X platform itself. However, it is not infallible and has been prone to bias. As Alison Morrow wrote for CNN "it’s almost as conspiracy addled as its owner."
This is largely because on the May 14th, Grok started spitting out references to white genocide in South Africa – since refuted, or disputing the numbers of those who perished in the Holocaust, in response to innocent questions such as “please give me some cat pictures.” While this has been explained away as a temporary glitch or human interference in its code, it shows that AI , especially when used as a fact checker is not independent or as immune from human interference as it was thought to be.
Reliability and Impartiality
I have used two kinds of AI with some success for about a year now as an adjunct to writing, however, more recently I have found that the data is not always as up to date as it could be and I have had to prompt it several times to locate particular article I have read somewhere. Had I not known of its existence and persisted, it would never have come to light in response to the original question. Copilot defends this as being due to the fact that some older platforms aren’t refreshed as often, but sometimes a look at the sources shows that they actually contradict the original response.
I'm not sure if this is being done in order to push people towards paid subscription versions. There is also the risk, that like Twitter, that it could also fall into the hands of a private individual, group or government with less than benign intentions, other than the impartial pursuit and dissemination of information.
Threats to employment of journalists and creatives
As we've seen AI can save writers and editors enormous amounts of time by being able to quickly search though and analyse vast amounts of material or deal with routine tasks. However, when it is used to compile entire stories, it again poses a risk to the employment of journalists and the like. [Creatives please note you aren’t losing out here as I could never afford to pay anyone for this]. The fact that Social Media also functions as a ‘giant surveillance machine” is also of concern, since it would inhibit the work of investigative journalists and perhaps disclose the names of sources and whistleblowers.
Enter the “Deep Fakes”
The new elephant in the room is the fact that AI can now be used to clone images and speech of individuals with surprising accuracy.
“Deep Fakes” as they are called, are now much more
sophisticated than the one used by Catherine, the Princess of Wales to send an
image of herself and family, while she was in fact receiving cancer treatment. Though this use of a fake image was fairly innocent and rather clumsy in retrospect, it still spread far and wide via
the international press before being detected. Voices can now also be cloned leading to fake speeches
such one showing Zelensky surrendering to the Russians or those involving
President Obama or Biden. In the wrong hands such
creations can be used to mislead, defraud and to manipulate opinion which all
serve to further undermine trust in the media.
A frequent advertisement on X for example, showed Australian billionaire “Twiggy” Forrest and popular personalities promoting investment products, despite huge efforts on their part to stop them. If they can’t, who can? Even more pernicious are those which offer so -called health products using images and voices of well -known medical professionals. In this troubled landscape, how do we ensure we are getting the Truth, the Whole Truth and nothing but the Truth?
- Listen to Noam Chomsky talking about how what we see and hear is a seamlessly carefully version of reality.
- Or Carole Cardwallra who broke the story about Cambridge Analytica, talking about new risks from merging our data.
In the next posts we'll talk about what governments and others are doing to combat "deep fakes" and other forms of misinformation and what we can do ourselves.
In the meantime, the best thing we can do is to be skeptical about what we see and hear and if you have found trusted news sources, support them with your hard earned cash, subscriptions and the like, so they can keep operating in the current climate where there is too little money and too much competition.
By the way, this post has been written with help from Microsoft Copilot, but all sources have been checked and verified at the time of writing. Don't rely on AI to do your homework kids without doing the same.
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