We are in the season of Goodwill to all Men (and Women) but I notice that the sport headlines this week have been about beer poured over Jimmy Anderson’s head by a chap called Ben Duckett and a fracas involving milk being thrown at Jose Mourinho after the Manchester derby. The BBC led on these items on all its sport bulletins for several days – including this morning when the memory of City’s 2-1 win had already faded into the tears provoked by Cheggers’s demise.
Never mind fake news, how about getting things in proportion? There is an initiative to teach what is and isn’t ‘fake’ to kids in school- because they are apparently exposed and vulnerable through their huge consumption of social media. When senior journalists and editors rail about lies and damned lies they ought to take a hard look at their own choices. Perspective, proportion, balance and integrity are all in short supply. The lowest common denominator becomes the highest common factor – sleaze, scandal and tale-telling to titillate.
The aforementioned James Anderson has pointed out that the story of 5 England cricketers visiting a sick cricket fan who is too ill to get to the upcoming test in Perth, got no coverage whatsoever. The frenzied paparazzi and the junkie journos from the mainstream media don’t hang out around hospitals, only bars and football tunnels, hoping for an ‘incident’.
The real fakery is distortion. Lies are lies in any language but the selection of a story and the hype it is given is a subtle way, over time, of grooming a nation into Daily Maildom. And the BBC are culpable.
simplysorro 
Couldn’t agree more.