Two months ago, a
renowned Quebec journalist has been the talk of the town for a lot of people in
the province of Quebec. François Bugingo, a media figure who is very present in Quebec, used
to work for some of the most popular media in Montreal. Indeed, he collaborates
on the most viewed newscast show and he holds a daily column on Internationals
affairs on 98,5 FM radio. In addition, he writes his own blog where he reports
some news he witnessed. He’s also known on a larger scale, due to his
implication with Reporters without Borders. His life changed in a heartbeat
when the most read newspapers in Montreal, LaPresse, released a descriptive article, which
proved that M.Bugingo had invented a lot of news. The author of that LaPresse article accused the international
journalist to have invented, from scratch, some articles about news, which
related to war and terrorism. The research made on his case showed, however,
that his journalistic conclusions are sometimes highly romanticized, when they
are not downright wrong. He published the fact that he had supposedly
negotiated the release of a journalist hostage, which was held by terrorists of
Al Qaeda in Mauritania in September 2011. However, proof has shown that he
never set foot in Mauritania in September 2011. Furthermore, he said that he apparently
witnessed the following:
“In Mistrata, Libya, one of the most zealous torturers
of the regime of dictator Gaddafi was about to get executed by the triumphant
militaries. The man in handcuffs was foul smelling; he probably pied on
himself. His face was swollen from the hit he received. The excited combatants
lead him to its place of execution when the soon-to-be killed man turned to me
[François Bugingo], and screamed: I hate the bad man the Guide made of me”.
Certainly, the media of
the world produced a lot of content about
the conflicts that are occurring in countries such as Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan,
Liberia, Rwanada, and so forth. As a worldwide subject, it’s even more present today
with the actions of the Islamic state (Daesh). These terrorists’ attacks feed
the international media, and attract, by the same time, the attention of the
population. So, for an international reporter and journalist, owning key
information on this important subject is a step towards an immediate popularity
and recognition. M.Bugingo has therefore used his public awareness as a
reporter to create stricking content that would catch the attention.
In this
case, the use of new media such as blogs or social networks has been the key
for M.Bugingo’s temporally success. Nowadays, the contents shared on social
networks have taken such proportions that it’s extremely hard, if not
impossible, to control or censor. It’s now more than easy to portray a false
life through social medias. Hidden behind the screen, any individual wishing to
embellish his life, photos or content is able to do so. In M.Bugingo’s case,
it took a few years to discover the truth on what he published, since consumers
purchased the elements that he disclosed. He used “popular” international
issues to make sure that he’d get the attention of his readers. For many years
now, it’s been common to hear of social media publishing false news to increase
their readership and to have the
exclusivity on a particular subject. What happens when these kinds of false
news are spread on the Internet is that they are normally received and believed
by readers. This proves that any facts issued on social networks can create
false perception on a subject, for people who don’t really know much about it.
Also, spreading unfounded information creates what we call “social cascades”,
which represents travelling information from one people to another and lead to
convincing other people about what they think. It could have made a reader some
false hatred towards the conflict that he described. By sharing M.Bugingo news,
which really seem, at first, to be proven and true, people started to gain
interest for his articles and started sharing them on social networks. Even
people who would not normally have followed him or his articles on a day-to-day
basis (“Daily me”) could be exposed to
this false representation of the reality.
The flow of contents across
these different media platforms ensures that the consumer does not know where
and how to divide the good news from the bad. As M.Jenkins would say: “Convergence culture is the merging of the
various forms of media so that the media consumer has become an active
participant in the guiding forces behind that media.” In M.Bugingo’s case, we can tell that people who were
consuming, sharing and/or commenting his news were actually being fooled
without even realizing it. It’s a good thing to be able to be an “active
participant in the guiding forces behind the media”. Therefore, when the users
feed the false content, they’re also in the wrong. Media have the power to
expend some content over the entire world. Therefore, the big issue is the
legitimacy of that actual content. In this journalist’s case, I notice that
despite a particular position that an individual may have within a big company,
it will always be really easy to share unfounded content. Obviously, if I say
on my Facebook that I witnessed an attack in Syria last week, I will not be the
most credible person. However, it’s sad to see that a journalist can be
published without being validated by any seniors in the company. What I
realized is also that people are easy to convince. Some individuals will absorb
any information and will consider it true. For M.Bugingo, I think it’s a lack
of respect for people who appreciated him and also for people who are victims,
directly or indirectly, by his false spreading news.
With that being said,
I came to the conclusion that the expansion of new media could effectively lead
to situations like the one encountered by M.Bugingo. Indeed, the news that he
shared was unnoticed on social media and was accepted by thousands of people
who thought they knew the truth. We have to be careful with new media, because on
a wide array of contents, we must verify the sources of information, otherwise
we will be a society who is ignorant, uninformed and biased.
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