Channel 4 will examine ‘Fake News’ in a week-long season of programming this February that gives an insight into the post-truth world. From the fakers peddling fiction as fact to professional blaggers stealing the headlines – it’s never been easier to make or make up the news. In a world where truth is compromised by popularity, determined by clicks, likes and shares, is anyone telling it like it is?
After investigating last year the burgeoning cottage industry producing fake online news, Channel 4 News will explore where fake news comes from and its implications in a number of reports, interviews and discussions, working with its award-winning Fact Check team. The team, founded in 2005, has broadened its remit from checking the claims of those in power to also debunk false claims widely disseminated via social media. It will be hosting an interactive Q&A on the subject on Facebook Live during Fake News Week.
Exposing the darks arts of one of the UK’s most notorious paparazzi photographers, Confessions of a Paparazzo (w/t) is a candid and entertaining insight into the world of celebrity paparazzo and master of deception, George Bamby. The documentary reveals how far George and his apprentice Bilko will go to get lucrative snaps of celebrities and how some photographs printed in national newspapers and magazines are not always quite what they seem.
Comedian and infamous hoaxer Simon Brodkin made headlines around the world showering Sepp Blatter in banknotes and storming Kanye West’s stage at Glastonbury. In 2016 Channel 4 gained exclusive access to the comic for a unique documentary Britain’s Greatest Hoaxer that lifts the lid on the months of meticulous planning and preparation it takes to pull off a headline-grabbing stunt as Brodkin sets his sights on three of the world’s most notorious and newsworthy figures: Simon Cowell, Sir Philip Green and President-elect of the United States, Donald J. Trump.
A panel of some of the sharpest and funniest minds will dissect some of the outlandish headlines, dodgy photo-shops and all-too-believable viral clips in a one-off comedy panel show, The Fake News Show.
