The fake news global struggle has come to the forefront for the last few years. Social media, deep fakes, numerous means to absorb information facilitate this even more.

However, traditionally, there has always been, so to speak, a sinless – mainstream – layer of media, making sure to double-check any facts and publish only confirmed information.  They have always been a bastion of honest and proven journalism, a pillar that both government officials and big business could rely on and look to for analysis of world events. Their leading journalists have been working there for many decades and the quality of their materials and journalism has always remained exceptional.

However, several recent cases raise doubts about the same high level of fact checking. On the other hand, maybe there is another reason? True, international conflicts make it more difficult for the media to verify information. However, some interested parties may take advantage of this, disseminating misinformation for their business and other purposes.

All eyes are focused now at some major American media, which have not been entirely neutral during elections, and now the discussions emerge on the consequences: how they will fight back and rehabilitate themselves?

But this is a global problem. The level of information warfare has unfortunately reached such a level that even the majors allow themselves to be biased. This October the Wall Street Journal has published[1] an article reporting that Saudi Arabia’s oil minister had said oil prices might drop to $50 if the group’s members do not stick to output cuts. However, OPEC very quickly refuted the article.

As OPEC has pointed out in Reuters [2], the WSJ report cited unidentified delegates from the oil producers group as saying they heard the minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, had given the warning on a conference call last week. The WSJ cited the sources as saying he had singled out Iraq and Kazakhstan for overproduction. “The article falsely reported that a conference call took place in which the Saudi Arabian Energy Minister allegedly warned OPEC+ members of a potential price drop to $50 per barrel should they fail to comply with agreed production cuts,” OPEC added in a post on X.

OPEC even stressed that no such conference call occurred last week, nor has any call or video conference taken place since the OPEC+ meeting on Sept. 5.

It is difficult to say whether this was a simple mistake, where the source of the publication provided incorrect information that there was no reason not to trust, or whether this was a deliberate misinformation of the market, which could lead to price fluctuations in oil and artificially affect the current state of the market.

The media hasn’t made any corrections or responses to the case as of now.

Another case is the recent Financial Times publication[3] about the plans of Russian energy group Lukoil to sell its refinery in Bulgaria—its largest asset in the Balkans—to a Qatari-British consortium, citing a letter sent by Lukoil on October 22 to the office of Russian president Vladimir Putin.

However, Litasco, a subsidiary of Lukoil, immediately announced[4] that it was not negotiating the sale of a refinery in Bulgaria – Neftochim – with a Qatari-British consortium.

“The company (Litasco) stresses that the suggestions made in these publications are inaccurate and misleading, in particular, that no talks are being held with the aforementioned Qatari-British consortium and there have been no communications with Russian Federation authorities on the subject,” said Litasco. “Lukoil reserves the right to protect its commercial reputation from any misleading representations that may appear in the media,” it added.

As it turned out, the presumed author of the letter had not worked within the company since 2018, which means that FT, one of the most reputable world media, built its story based on a dubious document. There is a possibility that someone sent it to the media and the content wasn’t checked properly. According to the FT article, the author didn’t try to contact Litasco for a comment, a logical step, basically undermining the authority of the unnamed source who may well be an insider with some (lack of) knowledge or a competitor. However, the Financial Times later took into consideration the position of the company and amended the article to quote them.

Yet another case is when a large, respected media outlet publishes information about the merger of several large Russian companies into a single conglomerate, sounding like a huge story, which fails the fact-checking test too, as it turned out. Immediately after the publication, all participants denied the information about the merger, calling it fake news and speculation.

It seems that all media in cases mentioned did not appeal for confirmation to the news sources. But, in all cases, they’ve cited some unknown persons or unseen documents, which is worrying.

The question is much broader actually. What is behind such mistakes in mainstream publications—a simple attempt to publish news quickly without double-checking, or could there be someone behind such stories? In history, certain circles or people influenced a publication to bring out information they needed. Such undercover struggle seems to have faded away, but some recent articles make us think about its return.

When, for example, in April Reuters[5] published information about Elon Musk’s plans to abandon the production of a budget car due to strong competition from Chinese automakers, citing three unnamed sources and unseen correspondence. The entrepreneur responded on the social network X that “Reuters is lying (AGAIN).“[6]. Such statements may affect the company’s shares, and if this case will not come true, then we can assume that there was a specific manipulation on the part of competitors.

Such cases harm the reputation of the media outlet, and if they happen more, the level of trust may slide down. We wouldn’t want to see this, as trendsetters in the field of professional journalism should ensure above all quality, so when we read an article, we should definitely know that this is a fact.

[1] https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/saudi-minister-warns-of-50-oil-as-opec-members-flout-production-curbs-216dc070

[2] https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/opec-rebuts-wsj-article-saudi-saying-oil-prices-could-drop-50-2024-10-02/

[3] https://www.ft.com/content/b77822f6-e2a7-420a-bb23-43a8d21548f2

[4] https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/lukoil-denies-sale-of-neftochim-in-bulgaria-to-qatari-british-consortium/

[5] https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-scraps-low-cost-car-plans-amid-fierce-chinese-ev-competition-2024-04-05/

[6] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1776272471324606778

Photo by Peter Lawrence on Unsplash