All Lies, or What? When News Become a Weapon

In January 2015 a shocking video clip, published by the terrorist ISIS-militia, was mentioned in various news headlines worldwide. The video claimed to show a young boy executing two Russian spies. According to experts at the German intelligence agency BND, the clip was a fake. ‘We can assure’, they say and prove in Klaus Scherer’s documentary, ‘that no one died in this video.’ There were other fake news about ISIS, that the BND sees as fabricated by the Iraqi government, e.g. a retouched photograph showing the dead corpse of ISIS leader Al-Baghdadi. What is real, what is fake? Who spreads online propaganda, who debunks it? Klaus Scherer presents many examples of fake news that successfully fooled both editors and viewers alike. And he gets in touch with experts within the fast paced media world, be they forensic analysts at the BBC’s news desk or activists in Ukraine’s weborganization ‘StopFake.org’. He interviews the new Facebook unit in Israel’s Defence Forces and their critics and he talks to US media scientists who describe the newest consumption trends as both a blessing and a curse. According to these analysts the audience itself will be a decisive key player when it comes to the future of high quality news.