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PRESS REVIEW © FRANCE 24
Issued on: 27/03/2025 – 13:54
06:41 min
Reading time 3 min
PRESS REVIEW – Thursday, March 27: There’s a big focus on disinformation campaigns in the press – from Turkish state TV failing to show anti-government protests, to Canadian fears of India interfering in upcoming national elections. Meanwhile, there’s more trouble for the Trump administration: German newspaper Der Spiegel reveals that the private data of top US security officials is freely available online. Plus, find out what happened after Italian daily Il Foglio let artificial intelligence write a special edition of the paper!
Disinformation campaigns are a big topic in the press this Thursday. We begin with Libération, the French paper, which looks at the ongoing protests in Turkey. It’s been one week since Istanbul’s mayor Ekrem Imamoglu was arrested and anti-government protests against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan show no signs of abating. This comes despite a crackdown on protesters and a propaganda campaign that seeks to accuse the opposition CHP party, to which Imamoglu belongs, of corruption. The Guardian notes a glaring disparity: at the same time as the sound of clanging pots and pans on the streets, viewers of state TV saw none of the protests, nor the protesters. Instead, state TV focused on the Turkish president boasting of his government’s achievements in education and the economy. Even in the opposition-aligned media, the protesters are portrayed as threats. As The Guardian notes: this campaign of disinformation in Turkey is the result of a decades-long repression of the media by Erdogan, who controls 85 percent of national and corporate media in the country.
There are fears of disinformation in Canada ahead of snap elections next month. Recent campaigns in the country have been subjected to nefarious tactics such as online smear campaigns, doctored images and hacking of election systems, as The Guardian notes. The Globe and Mail reported that former Liberal candidate Chandra Arya was disqualified over concerns about his relationship with India and undue influence. Arya travelled to India last year and met with PM Narendra Modi, while not disclosing his visit. It comes over fallout with India after the 2023 assassination of a Sikh activist on Canadian soil, with Canada saying India was behind the murder. It’s not just India: China, Iran and Pakistan are all expected to interfere in Canada’s upcoming election, the paper says.
The fallout from the Trump administration’s Signal leak on Yemen continues. German paper Der Spiegel says the private data of Trump’s security advisers can also be found online, including passwords. According to Der Spiegel, phone numbers and email addresses for National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, Director of Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth can be found via commercial data search services and hacked data dumped online. In some cases, the numbers are linked to WhatsApp and Signal accounts. It follows a massive security scandal this week after The Atlantic journalist Jeffrey Goldberg found himself on the group chat for bombing Yemen, the details of which he has since published. In an opinion piece for The New York Times, one writer says: “If you’re running security for a hostile nation, savor this moment. It’s never been easier to steal US government secrets.” The Times reminds us that Donald Trump has turned tens of thousands of people with access to government secrets into disgruntled ex-employees. Despite having the chance to nip this scandal in the bud, the government has continued to deny any wrongdoing.
Finally: an Italian newspaper is experimenting with what happens when a paper is run by AI. The Washington Post reports that the experiment is an attempt by the paper to explore the capabilities and limitations of artificial intelligence. Il Foglio, a centre-right pro-European paper based in Rome, launched the experiment earlier this month to run a supplement based on journalists asking AI questions. The results of the first week were published a few days ago and reveal paradoxes. AI can write well, using long sentences, subtle irony and political allusions on a host of topics. However, it cannot make a phone call to sources, or interpret a statement. It can, “imitate Il Foglio, but isn’t necessarily its soul”. Journalists‘ jobs may be safe from AI, at least for the moment.
You can catch our press review every morning on FRANCE 24 at 7:20am and 9:20am (Paris time), from Monday to Friday.
