I really enjoy the television programme “Would I lie to you?”
Not least because one of the team captains, Lee Mack can be hilarious.
It’s a panel game, and the idea is that people tell a fact or story about themselves, the other team of three asks them questions and try to guess if they’re telling the truth or a lie.
Lee Mack tells us that every time he makes a cup of tea at home, he takes four paces back from the cup, takes three tea bags and throws them, darts-style, into the cup while giving a running commentary as if he’s in the World Darts final.
And that one was true!
It’s a fun game; but it would seem in the wider world that distinguishing truth or lies is becoming ever more difficult.
Try these two stories that emerged this year: (one of them is true, one a lie).
Pope Francis endorses Donald Trump.
Britain plans to tackle Brexit by selling jam and biscuits.
Actually, the Brexit one is true, the British Government believes these food products can be vital to trade deals.
The Pope’s endorsement of The Donald was published on one of those increasingly popular fake news websites. They admit it’s fake news, just for fun. The problem is a number of world news outlets ran it and it got into the ether so much that many people in America believed it.
There is a difference between satire sites, such as Waterford Whispers, which can be funny. Whereas fake sites are just that, fake.
It’s also been revealed in a survey that many students are no longer able to distinguish between real and fake news.
Political opponents claim, of course, that the Brexit vote was won on lies; the “promise” to spend the £350million saved each week from contributions to the EU on the health service was quickly reined in the day after the vote – quite apart from the fact that Britain doesn’t even pay that amount each week net to the EU.
Trump promised to build a wall at the Mexican border and make the Mexicans pay. Now, there’ll be no wall, maybe a fence. But did anybody ever believe that anyway, and did the people who voted for him care. They loved it when he threatened to put Hillary in jail, but now he’s heading for the White House, they don’t much care that he says the Clintons are “good people.”

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Don’t say we weren’t warned. In his autobiography in 1987 Trump himself said: “I play to people’s fantasies. I call it truthful hyperbole. It’s an innocent form of exaggeration.”
We live in an era which is being called “post-truth”, or a time when people make up their minds about things no matter the facts. Or as one commentator explained it’s society where facts exist, but don’t really matter.
But spin and lies are an age-old phenomenon. In 1982, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was publically and forcefully declaring: “The NHS is safe with us.”
New release of Government papers has now revealed that, in fact, she and some of her closest Cabinet allies were pushing hard for radical proposals which included compulsory private health insurance and a system of private medical facilities. To put it bluntly, she lied in public.
Alastair Campbell, Director of Communication for Tony Blair, had the dark art of spin down off to a tee, but is there anybody now who doesn’t believe that Blair’s “sexed up” document took Britain to war in Iraq on a lie? And has he been held accountable?
So I’m not sure if this is completely new; with the cyber world pumping out unverified material minute by minute and the modern tactic of spin down to a fine art, it’s certainly sinister and deeper than ever.
This week gunman went into a pizza restaurant in Washington with an assault rifle, convinced that a fake story that it was the centre of a paedophile ring led by Hillary Clinton was actually true. An extreme example perhaps; but even when it doesn’t end up in such a dangerous scenario, who wants to live in a world where people lie through their teeth, or at the very least twist the truth, and nobody bats an eyelid.
The current state of the media doesn’t help. The idea from years ago that newspapers were a reliable source of truth is, these days, blurred to say the least. The old saying that paper doesn’t refuse ink has moved on to accusations of some newspapers printing stuff they know is untruthful, to suit an agenda.
Also with many papers desperate to boost sales figures, the tabloids now have a reputation of playing fast and loose with the news agenda and not covering serious issues. And, of course, the easiest thing is if the like of the BBC don’t report on things you want them to, they have a biased “agenda.”
This is a worrying trend, no? There is an increasing danger of not only an unaccountable media, possibly not properly resourced, and worst of all a subservient media afraid to ask the difficult questions. And in a further twist, it seems that the days of people being embarrassed by scandal have gone; today’s scandal, tomorrow’s chip wrapper, just ride it out and they’ll move on to somebody else.
In Northern Ireland, there are still serious questions being asked by responsible journalists; though it has to be said that the political class here who make great noises about open and accountable democracy are talking the talk, but don’t walk the walk.
The glut of press officers at Stormont is bad enough, but when they continuously put journalists into a web of a process of making them email questions (to which clear answers are never clear) then it’s hardly open government.
I recently listened to a radio programme where elected representatives from the SDLP were complaining about not getting answers to questions they’d put to the Executive Office months earlier.
Yet, Minister Mairtin O’Muilleoir recently issued a statement in which he welcomed a “range of open government commitments to strengthen transparency and accountability.”
To which journalist Sam McBride tweeted: “Given my experience of how many Stormont departments respond to media and FOI questions, I’m choosing to read this as elaborate satire.”
And, of course, if all else fails and the media do report on Government, the game is to sneer at the negativity of the media. Some are, a lot aren’t.
And in this “post-truth” era, it would seem that whatever the argument put forward, people have already made up their minds, depending if you’re in the pro-media or pro-politician camp.
Surely both of us have a responsibility to the public.
Even in Northern Ireland, the truth is out there; it just seems to be increasing difficult to find.