The Slow News movement: an answer to Fake News?

In this brave new world we’re living in, the unbearable overload of information we are daily fed has given birth to a dystopian paradox: we believe everything and we believe nothing at the same time, as our mind is drowned in a whirlpool of tweets, posts, videos, hoaxes, and fake news.

Over the last years, in different parts of the world, islets of resistance have come to surface. Small crews of independent journalists are striving to build an alternative model based on a crystal-clear principle: we need to slow down. A militant documentary that hails journalism as the key pillar of democracy.

https://www.filmfestival.gr/en/section-tdf/movie/1047/13001

This interesting, new documentary by Alberto Puliafito, explores a new type of journalism that was born through the need for journalistic authenticity in a chaotic media landscape.

In a system characterized by a continuous, ruthless competition in every aspect of life, journalism fatefully declined into a race for clickbaits. This story shows that the quality of journalism retreated against the quantity of information, which is necessary for more views in the digital media outlets.

In an honest self-criticism, Craig Silverman, media editor of BuzzFeed news, admits that the biggest media outlets are responsible to some extent for the fact that people have lost trust on them. So, it's not just because of technology, the social media, or Trump, like many well-known mainstream media personalities frequently claim.

And we have to add that, in fact, Trump and other far-right demagogues exploited the mistrust of the public on mainstream media and capitalized it.

The documentary presents the new idea of Slow News in correspondence to the Slow Food movement that has been created as an answer to the fast food culture. Peter Laufer, a pioneer of the Slow News movement, speaks about this idea.

His book Slow News: A Manifesto for the Critical News Consumer, examines the nature of news in the context of the increasingly frenetic pace of modern life in the twenty-first century. Taking a cue from the slow food movement, Laufer suggests that we step back from the constant barrage of instant news to consider news thoughtfully and thoroughly. He argues that it is valuable for both the journalist in the field and the news consumer at home to take the time to ruminate on most news events.

Puliafito also meets some people from independent media outlets that adopt the philosophy of the Slow News movement. Some of them even abandon the digital form and return to the traditional paper form. And all of them, are trying to build a mutual trust with their audience by focusing on the quality, not the quantity of their content.

More and more people are getting sick of the propaganda and the fake news. So, maybe the future winners in journalism will be the ones who will seriously invest on the priceless principle of truth.

***

The documentary participates in this year's Thessaloniki documentary festival. The festival was programmed to take place in the city of Thessaloniki in early March, as every year, but it was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However you can now watch this documentary and other documentaries online for free through festival's website. This digital festival will now take place online from 19 to 28 May of 2020. Don't miss it!

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