This is something the Prime Minister and his aides should read

But then again, they know all this and that’s exactly why they do it.

Crying “fake news” has become just another tactic to avoid a fact-based argument, writes Lenore Taylor in The Guardian. It’s handy for politicians but toxic for democracy.

“The US president-elect, Donald Trump, did it this week after the revelation of the Russian intelligence dossier. It is true the allegations in the dossier had not been verified,” she writes. “There is a legitimate debate in the media about whether, and how fully, it should have been published.

“But it was not fake news. Its was a real dossier and its contents were considered sufficiently credible for the Republican senator John McCain to pass it to the FBI and for federal officials to append a summary to their report to the president, Barack Obama, and Trump about claims of Russian hacking of Democrat emails during the 2016 election. It was a legitimate subject for questioning.

“But the man who denies ever having said things that are actually in print, or recorded, and who routinely asserts things that are obviously and verifiably untrue, had found one more way to avoid being pinned down by questions. Just call it “fake news”.”

Read the full article here.

There’s another interesting piece, focussed on Malta, here.