I've never written a TV review for IMDb before but Channel 4 has inspired me with this week's program 'The Fake News Show'. I knew in the back of my mind what I'd be getting when I sat down to watch it but even in this age of double-speak I was impressed with how much Channel 4 can distort the facts. Unsurprisingly, the raison d'etre of Channel 4's 'The Fake News Show' was not actually a critical analysis of 'fake news', the catch all term to describe misleading information generated for political gain, but rather a vehicle to disseminate Channel 4's own brand of political spin. Apart from the fact that the program was broadcast on Channel 4, the introduction of the panel of five identikit leftist liberal pundits made it clear that the show would tow the party line. If you didn't catch it, and I don't recommend that you do, the premise is that the panel rake over recent news stories that might be considered to be less than accurate, crack some jokes and have one of the teams win a quiz at the end à la 'Have I Got News for You'. Cue the politically correct virtue signalling and inevitable variety of journalistic strategies employed to create a one sided argument to suit their agenda. Headline fake news stories which one would have thought typified the current epidemic were omitted. While the program focused, unsurprisingly, on attacking Trump and the Republican government of the United States. Fake stories previously distributed by Channel 4 such as 'Martin Luther King bust removed from White House', were not mentioned despite being one of the most highly publicised examples of a fake news story. (The MLK bust never left the White House by the way. It was fake news). Fake news stories purporting to the temporary travel restrictions such as 'Mo Farah banned from U.S.' and stories that were the American equivalent, were never mentioned. (Any journalist could have seen by reading details of the travel restrictions that existing residents like Mo Farah would never be effected. They told you he might be because they were creating propaganda and they were lying to you. It was fake news.) Also no condemnation of fake stories like 'Russians conspiring to hack the American election'. (Another widely reported fake story distributed by news agencies like Channel 4 that were lying to you. It was fake news.) Indeed, not only did the program fail to do what it was supposed to do in identifying and criticising false news it actually went out of its way to spread false news. Mid-way through the program, TV regular Richard Osman, gave an impassioned speech, for which he was actually applauded by his sycophantic cohort, in which he described fake news as being, and I quote; "
generally people in Eastern Europe in the pay of the KGB or various other people who are making up things for clicks, that's what they're doing." Really Richard? Are the KGB making up fake news that they hacked the American election? I don't think they are. Are they making up fake news that they have recorded Donald Trump being urinated on by prostitutes? I don't think they are, are they. In-fact isn't it true that most spun stories are fake news generated by liberal leftists who want to discredit Trump and the Republican government and promote their own political agenda. Unless of course I'm really a KGB agent writing this. The program continued in the vein of a political broadcast, punctuated with anti-Trump jokes which seemed intent on actually propping up completely false news rather than exposing it. Panellists made jokes directly or indirectly at the expense of the American president throughout which were entirely based on false news stories such as, 'Trump being with prostitutes' and 'Trump having women peeing on him'. No mention of the fact that there's no evidence what-so-ever of this. It was around this point that I realised that the title 'The Fake News Show' did not refer to Channel 4 exposing false news but rather the point of the show was to create false news. Why would you expect anything less of the doublespeak channel.
