IT CERTAINLY didn’t start with Donald Trump – but he is the highest-profile exponent of one of the most disturbing social trends in modern society.

You could probably insert any number of examples of disconcerting behaviour by the US president – including some of those that have already led to him being sued in federal court 134 times since his inauguration – but the one I’m talking about is his apparent obsession with the term “fake news”.

In Trump’s hands, it appears to be simply a phrase he uses to show that he doesn’t like what a journalist has said about him or his activities or beliefs.

Much as I would like to believe that most people can see through this for what it is – a means of deflecting attention from the issue at hand or simply distracting the public from the truth – there seems to be a growing number who are happy to take this at face value.

Every local newspaper – the Telegraph & Argus included – is used to receiving feedback from people who want to kick off because a story about something they have done or been involved in to some extent has appeared in its pages.

Very often that stems from the fact that they hadn’t realised the press was present in the courtroom or public meeting or had picked up the news from one source or another. The complaint is a knee-jerk reaction to the surprise – or shock – of reading about what they’ve done in black and white or, frequently, waking to the knowledge that other people could have read about it too.

Nowadays, it has become commonplace to take that reaction straight to social media, without giving the press the opportunity to explain that it has every right to report those facts, that it is merely there as an agent of the wider public who have a right to know what is happening in their local community, especially if that identifies a risk to them or their family or involves the expenditure of public money or use of taxpayer-financed resources to resolve it.

Increasingly, those who take this course of action quote the phrase “fake news”, as if this will somehow convince their audience that the newspaper is “making up” the story or deliberately lying about the facts.

Of course, the notion that any newspaper would randomly select a member of the public to make up stories about doesn’t bear examination but, sadly, it is the nature of social media that the insinuation will be “liked” or “shared” by friends and acquaintances in an effort to embarrass the journalist or media and thereby distract from the truth of the situation.

But what could a local newspaper hope to gain by behaving that way? The accusers often cite “selling newspapers” as the motivation – apparently oblivious to the fact that most of this news is actually published online first, as it breaks.

They forget that the journalists who write these stories are part of the same community; they shop in the same shops, eat in the same cafes, catch the same buses.

Local newspapers simply could not exist if they weren’t immersed in their local area and had not built up the trust of their readers, often over hundreds of years.

More than any other form of media, the local press exists on its independence, its neutrality, its strict adherence to facts, its honesty and its balance.

Yes, of course it gets it wrong from time to time. Which of us doesn’t in any walk of life?

But it does not do so out of malice or any kind of commercial motivation. Any journalist who does make an error knows that he or she will be pilloried by local readers and the effect is, frankly, mortifying for every single one.

Local news reporters are passionate and highly professional in the way they go about gathering news. The need for balance and accuracy is something that’s drilled into them during the two-to-three-years of academic learning and on-the-job experience it takes to qualify as a journalist.

Exaggerating or mispresenting information is totally against the grain, as is injecting opinion or comment into factual coverage. Getting it wrong is like an arrow to the heart.

Can you honestly say that such a degree of professionalism, such a high standard of training, such a determination to be accurate and fair exists outside the real media?

Add to that the fact that local newspapers are the voice of their local community and are so often a catalyst for change, holding those in power to account and stimulating improvements in local life.

In an age where unreliable sources of so-called news are multiplying daily, the local press is the bedrock on which the lighthouse of truth, honesty and decency stands. It rebuffs the waves of distortion, innuendo, unsubstantiated rumour and gossip and, in doing so, keeps its loyal readers from smashing to pieces on the hidden reefs of falsehood and hoax.

So, ask yourself which light you prefer to follow: the bright, powerful, sweeping beam of local journalists trying their hardest to get to the facts – or the darting, swinging, pin-pricks that the malicious wreckers use to lure the unsuspecting on to the jagged rocks of fake news?

Never was there a greater need for the beacon of responsibility and reliability that your local paper provides.

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