How do we safely navigate a world flooded with false information?
What is fake news and misinformation and how do we avoid being fooled by the internet?
Investigative journalist Stephen Davis will offer answers at a special two-hour workshop at Queenstown Writers Festival. He’ll provide guidelines on getting good information, reliable sources and understanding political propaganda and conspiracy theories.
It is information that we all need in a world of overwhelming information circulated by politicians, corporations and interest groups.
Stephen has a particular interest in disinformation and misinformation as a journalist seeking the truth despite the efforts of those who attempt to dissuade him, including men with Kalashnikovs, government lawyers, corporate PRs in fancy suits, senior police officers, billionaires and newspaper owners.
After the seminar Stephen will give a separate presentation on his book The Secret History of Flight 149. He spent 30 years investigating the book and fighting against the false information the public and journalists were fed over a truly awful incident.
The story is of a British Airways plane that flew from the UK to Kuwait, in August 1990 as Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi army invaded the small country, with about 400 crew and passengers on board.
They were people from many different nationalities, including Kiwis, Brits, Australians and Americans. They landed in a war zone and all of those people were captured and taken hostage by Saddam Hussein and were ultimately used as human shields.
The mystery that Stephen fought to uncover was to understand why it was the only plane to land that night, when all others were turned away.
The official line from Margaret Thatcher’s government at the time was that those on board were on an extended holiday: “They’re sipping cocktails by the pool in luxury hotels. It will all be OK.”
According to Stephen that was true for about three days.
“Later on they were taken to about 70 places all over Iraq and Kuwait where Saddam thought the allies would bomb and they were very badly treated.”
There were sexual assaults, physical assaults and mock executions. “It’s a real horror story,” Stephen says.
The British government claimed the plane landed and crew changed all before the Iraqi invasion. “That was a complete lie. In fact, the invasion started when the plane was still several hours’ flying time from Kuwait.”
– Join a workshop on understanding misinformation and disinformation, and later find out more about investigative journalism and The Secret History of Flight 149, at Stephen’s two sessions on Saturday November 12.
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