Eamonn Holmes - 'Journalism needs to look at itself over fake news'
Broadcaster and journalist Eamonn Holmes has said that journalism 'needs to look at itself' over the rise in prominence of so-called fake news.
The issue has been brought into the spotlight most publicly by US President Donald Trump, but there have been a number of accusations made against local media outlets of bias or 'fake news' as well.
The former Sky presenter Eamonn Holmes claims that it is easy for journalists to fall into the trap of putting out stories that have not been as throughly checked as they should have been.
"Let's all stop doing this 'worthier than thou' thing in journalism saying fake news doesn't exist," he said.
"Look at the online services, look at what attracts people to the online services, sensationalism and numbers."
He also went on to say that although journalists might not be putting out news that is directly fake, there are cases where too much trust is given to an outside source.
"Fake news does exist and we are as guilty as anyone of letting it happen," he said.
"We have got to fight back and train more numbers on journalism, better training in journalism and less reliance on PR companies."
Local online and social media expert Wayne Denner said that steps had been taken by social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook to address the proliferation of supposed fake new articles.
"I'm pleased to see that Facebook are implementing a little flag on stories that are coming up, where you can effectively report that as a fake news story," he said.
"They have clamped down on things like clickbait, they have been very active on that front.
"Twitter has also rolled out muted accounts.
"Just in the past five days or so, they have introduced a suite of new reporting options, because I think what they need to do is give the user more control.
"Think of the internet and social media, it's a community.
"We have a responsibility as members of that community to report things."
What is clear, regardless of whether "fake news" is seen as biased stories produced by the mainstream media or unverified stories posted by citizen journalists, is that the discussion is very much in the public arena and that social media sites are starting to sit up and take notice of their users' frustrations.