EDITORIAL - Fake news from the terrorists

There is so much talk about fake news these days. And that cannot be helped because fake news does abound. Indeed, thanks to social media, fake news has become an unwanted part of our daily lives. Social media thrives on the ease and speed with which any information can be obtained and passed along. The need to be responsible enough to pause and verify is exactly what social media is not about.

Where social media is about ease and speed, mainstream media is about reliability and accountability, and the distinction is so clear it is nearly impossible to miss it. And yet, miss it, some occasionally do. Even more interestingly, those who miss it come from mainstream media, never the other way around. It is mainstream media that often takes the fake for real.

One of the most glaring examples of this pertains to that widely publicized story about how the terrorists that tried to seize control of Marawi have taken to recruiting and using children as warriors. That story was based on propaganda deliberately left for the taking by the terrorists. Never mind that social media, true to form, lapped it up. But mainstream media dwelling on it?

Okay, the story developed a life of its own when even the Philippine military picked it up. But the Philippine military had its reasons for doing so. It seized the story because of the opportunity it presented of blowing up in the faces of the terrorists. The Philippine military was banking on the possibility that a backlash from the use of children as warriors would undermine any popular support the terrorists may have.

But then again, the veracity of the story was so easy to verify and it is a wonder that nobody did. According to the story, the terrorists have recruited more than a hundred children soldiers. Add that to the reported strength of the terrorists at about 500 and you have roughly 600 jihadists battling it out with government forces in Marawi. Then consider that against the body count reported so far.

The estimated number of terrorists killed has been pegged at between 300 and 400 warriors. Yet nowhere in all the reports made about casualties, whether in social or mainstream media, has there been any mention of a child soldier killed or wounded, which is very strange considering the number of child warriors supposedly fighting in Marawi. Clearly the news about child warriors was fake, supported by rigged photos meant to project the terrorists as attractive, even to children.