Just a little bit fake — does it count if the story is charming and harmless?
When the unwitting subjects of a fake news story become famous, what is there to do?
Here is David Saunders’ tale.
In the late afternoon of 31 December 2017, on holiday in Coromandel in New Zealand’s North Island, he snapped some partygoers sitting at a picnic table having a few New Year’s coldies. What was striking was that they were atop a self-engineered sand island in the middle of the Tairua estuary.
Knowing there was a ban on drinking alcohol on Coromandel beaches, David posted the pic to a community Facebook page, with the caption, “What liquor ban, we’re outside territorial waters”.
On New Year’s Day, the first media account of the sand island appeared under the headline, “New Year’s revellers build sandcastle in Coromandel estuary to avoid liquor ban”. It described the group as ‘reportedly’ saying they were in international waters.
Over the first two days of 2018 — deep into the silly season — the resourceful Kiwis became global news. Fortune magazine, GQ, the Seven Network’s Sunrise program, Lonely Planet, and the Sydney Morning Herald, among many others, all ran admiring stories that included the “dodging the booze ban” line.
David, who’d also posted to his Facebook page, was messaged by almost a dozen overseas media outlets.
“I was stunned by the attention. I have no idea how they got my number but the BBC actually phoned me. I explained I didn’t know anyone in the group. The comment about beating the liquor ban by drinking in territorial waters was just a tongue-in-cheek line I’d made up on the spot.”
Nevertheless, on 1 January, the BBC had the headline, “New Zealanders build island in bid to avoid alcohol ban.”
Time magazine contacted David. He explained, again, that the comment was his. The magazine’s January 2 headline was, “Here’s How a Few Clever New Zealanders Evaded an Alcohol Ban on New Year’s Eve”.
“It did surprise me that no-one in New Zealand tried to corroborate my post. And from the sounds of it, they didn’t confirm with the people in the photo either. The media just fed off one another,” says David.
“And then it really surprised me when overseas reporters did contact me, heard my explanation, and ran the comment anyway.”
Meanwhile thousands were responding to the tale, on Facebook.
“By 3 January,” says David, “the original story had been shared 3,326 times and had received more than 24,000 comments. Many of those were testy exchanges about what actually constituted international waters. Some of it was really inane.”
But most people loved the yarn. The Coromandel mayor said the group’s actions reminded her of the inventiveness of the Radio Hauraki ‘pirates’ in the mid-60s. The area police commander said if he’d known about the group’s sandcastle, he probably would have joined them.
Fairfax finally tracked down the group, on 3 January. Yes, they claimed, they had indeed built the island to evade the liquor ban, and yes their excuse, if needed, was going to be ‘international waters’ although, according to the sand island’s head engineer, that was just a ‘throwaway’ comment.
A sceptical David Saunders believes the group quite liked the attention and realised they weren’t in any trouble, so why not claim the story? People were calling them geniuses.
Or maybe it was all true after all, and David had just lucked into their exact motivation.
Whatever. The blokes at the centre of the story had legitimised it. So, in the end, where was the harm in all those uncorroborated stories being published between the first and second of January?
While it was the dodgier — certainly unverified — bits of the yarn that propelled it around the world, it was all so cute and innocuous. And in this Trumpian era of communication, there are, after all, plenty of people for whom the facts are not as important as how the story makes them feel.
And who wants to be the wowser journalist who waits, purse-mouthed, for some social content verification agency to clear the thing, who refuses to join in the global fun being had with the story and has to write a headline like, “Chaps build sand island and have some drinks on it”. Then finds out the stars corroborate the whole thing anyway.
A question for an expert.
Past editor-in-chief of the New Zealand Herald Dr Gavin Ellis, who is also a senior lecturer in media studies at the University of Auckland, believes it’s not for journalists to decide that they will, or will not, check their facts based on the potential damage of publishing.
“In this case little harm was done but it should not be a matter of degree — the principle of verification simply should not be breached irrespective of the limited potential for harm.
“I take the view that nothing on social media should be incorporated into a story without independent verification. Social media is little different to graffiti on a wall. Comments can range from speculative and ill-informed posts to malicious disinformation, identity theft and ‘fake news’ — either for commercial gain or influence.
“Journalists wouldn’t base a story on scrawlings on brickwork, so they should not use social media as an unverified source.”
As for David Saunders, he says it has “absolutely” changed the way he regards stories in mainstream media. “There was a time when I simply had faith that what was being reported was accurate. Now, I look at a story, even one I want to believe, and go, ‘oh yeah?’”
