These are critical times for the media and journalism as we know it. There was a time when all of us consumed our news via TV, radio and print. Over the past 30 years, competition in those three areas arrived in the form of satellite TV, independent radio and a plethora of English-owned newspaper titles printing Irish editions.

Now though, we face a newer layer of competition which is serving to completely undermine the high standards of journalism

Add in the emergence of quality online news portals, and what all this managed to do was provide the likes of this writer a fantastic opportunity to practice in our chosen field, the same way you chose your career. But what remained constant was the onus on us all to abide by the basics of our profession which includes balance, fact and accuracy.

Now though, we face a newer layer of competition which is serving to completely undermine the high standards of journalism. Newspaper sales are dropping, public service broadcasting faces more competition from on-demand TV while radio is still holding its own – albeit in the face of the podcast era.

We are talking about the fight for free speech, balanced news reporting and the defeat of dangerous propaganda

This may sound like the small town shopkeeper complaining about the building of edge-of-town shopping centres, but it is not. It is more profound and a consequence for all of us.

We are talking about the fight for free speech, balanced news reporting and the defeat of dangerous propaganda. It really is hard to stomach the outlandish self-serving brainwashing rhetoric of Donald Trump when it comes to his treatment of the “mainstream” media. His catchphrase “fake news” in any other situation would earn him a fools’ pardon if he wasn’t so powerful and persuasive.

He can come to Ireland and talk about Ireland having “a wall” of its own and then pontificate to long-established media organisations about fake news. It is perplexing that educated people who support his dangerous demonisation of professional journalists cannot see the irony. So when I hear other people trotting out the “fake news” jibe, I despair.

What we have is a horseshoe scenario where the anti establishment extremists left and right are almost meeting at the top in their echoing of this Trumpian “fake news” wheeze.

It actually says lots about the great work of the professional media and public service broadcasting that you have for example, evangelical pro-life campaigners and hard left anarchists united in their hatred of what we do. In the era of intolerance where an opposing opinion or plain fact you disapprove of is fobbed off as “fake news”, it serves to once more undermine and weaken a profession which is unquestionably vital in any functioning democracy. We aim to get facts right.

One place you will find so called “fake news” is on various social media platforms such as YouTube and Twitter

We strive to be accurate and so out of the tens of thousands of stories printed and broadcast by the responsible media even in this country in any given year, how many times have people successfully sued for defamation or proved what we have reported on as being “fake news”? If we are so biased propagandists peddling “fake news”, then why are the courts not spilling over with libel suits?

One place you will find so called “fake news” is on various social media platforms such as YouTube and Twitter which is home to unregulated partisan commentators, influencers, and deluded lunatics who purposely don’t work as professional journalists because that would require them to be fair and balanced. Worryingly it’s from here more and more are sourcing their “news”.

We aren’t here to be popular, but when we see the way world politics is going, it is more important than ever that the professional mainstream media is supported in the fight against the real “fake news”.

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