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Unfortunately, fake news have been circulating even among those trying to dispel them with words. Here are a few examples of how information can be manipulated as well as some advice on how consumers can make up their own minds

Fake news are unfortunately circulating even among those trying to dispel them with words. It’s not a matter of making up things or negating reality, but rather a manipulation of reality aimed to give one’s own interpretation of it and to steer the opinion of the reader/listener.

Information should grant citizens the knowledge they need to form an opinion and make choices. However, for many media, including Western ones, the objective seems to be giving a precise opinion to push certain behavior.

• Those who push fake news or manipulate facts to convince the reader of their veracity are not giving information but pre-fabricating a truth

Russian media, for example, deny evidence or manufacture fake evidence to create an alternative reality. Western media too, while claiming to report on facts and to debunk lies, tend to give a partial account of the truth by presenting only the most convenient evidence and omitting those facts that would give readers a wider picture than the one they wish to impose.

An even more relevant example, at least for those working in the field of nutrition, is the statement made by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in 2016 press release on contaminants in palm vegetable oils: “(…) process contaminants in palm oil, as well as a few other vegetable oils, margarine, and processed foods, can be dangerous (…)”.

For Western media, palm oil (specifically addressed by the EFSA statement) quickly became a threat to health, while other oils, equally affected (at least according to EFSA), did not.

• No one bothered to explain to consumers the low degree of risk involved (the threshold for which would be the consumption of 388Kg of biscuits every day for three decades).
• In 2018 EFSA updated the original report to lower the degree of risk.
• In 2020 the EU adopted a regulation for the limitation of contaminants in all oils circulating on the European market.

Despite all this, many media, NGOs, and institutions keep repeating that palm oil is dangerous. They all claim to be enemies of fake news, and yet they are the first to divulge false facts to steer the market and competition in a precise direction.

This apples to glyphosate and many other ingredients and chemical substances.

News can be changed from real to fake by readers, if they are equipped with the proper tools to fact-check them. And that might not even be enough – they need to falsify facts.

Falsifying does not mean making up facts or misunderstanding existing ones. It means trying to prove that there exists at least one argument that falsifies the truth. The job isn’t so much proving that a statement is true, but that it is false.

• This tiring process, considered by many to be a form of relativism, helps the reader to engage with information and deepen knowledge.
• It is a never ending, frustrating, exercise, that allows us to create knowledge. Indeed, we must not seek satisfaction from facts, but from knowledge.

Over the course of the recent Festival of Food Journalism, Competere has shown how some media, public agencies, companies, and NGOs, have manipulated information for ideological, political, or commercial gain.

To ensure that readers and listeners are guaranteed the tools needed to form an opinion, we recommend relying on critical thinking, which involves:

• Finding and reporting problems first, then showing what has been observed, rather than the other way around;
• Favoring the falsification process rather than the verification one;
• Excluding any ideological approach;
• Renouncing emotions and getting used to frustration;
• Information that are not opinions but tools of decision-making.

In practice, for a journalist or for anyone wishing to report on facts, that means:

• Understanding that the reader is not stupid and has tools to falsify statements that are giving to them;
• Avoiding clickbait titles;
• Writing for the reader, and not for the SEO;
• Explaining why a fact is important;
• Citing as many sources as possible.