Rome, 19 June 2024 – Avram Noam Chomsky he is an American professor and intellectual, he is known for his work in linguistics, he is a left-wing political activist, and above all he is still alive. Last night around 10pm, it started spreading online news of his death by Chomsky, which immediately became a trending topic on X and published by almost all the major Italian newspapers. Too bad it was news false.
Initially appeared in the American magazine “Jacobin“, which published an article entitled “We remember Noam Chomsky, the intellectual and the giant of morality” – in which, however, there was no source confirming his death – the news was quickly picked up by the British newspaper “The New Statesman” with an obituary titled “The Noam Chomsky I knew,” which stated that the intellectual had died at the age of 95. The first Italian newspaper to report the news was “il Corriere della Sera”, followed by many others. The news also came out on the website RaiNews and on agency sites such as AdNKronosand continued to spread over the next two hours until it was denied by Chomsky’s wife himself, Valeria Wasserman.
The famous linguist has long been hospitalized in a hospital in Sao Paulo, Brazil, due to a stroke he had a year ago. It was the Brazilian journalists Cauê Seigner Amenidirector of the Brazilian edition of “Jacobin”, e Amauri Gonzo of “Ponte Jornalismo” were the first to deny the news of his death on X, after speaking directly with Wasserman, reports Wired. So two hours after publication, the American “Jacobin” changed the title and details of the article, adding a note: “Correction: this article was classified as an obituary following incorrect reports on the death of Noam Chomsky.” The reaction of most of the newspapers that announced Chomsky’s death was univocal: bury the news. The articles that had invaded the web have disappeared, deleted from the sites and replaced by different variations of the same title: “Noam Chomsky and the false news of his death denied by his wife”.
Of the Italian newspapers that had reported the fake news, only one, “Future”, attached to the new article an apology to the writer, his family and all readers, for having contributed to spreading false news. On X, an avalanche of negative, critical and offensive comments followed under the newspaper’s apology post.
The spread of fake news is an increasingly big problem in journalism, especially for online newspapers. The speed at which it travels disinformation is increasingly greater, fomented by click-bait titles to immediately attract the attention of readers, while the same does not happen with certified news aimed at disproving false ones. The case of Chomsky’s false death is a clear example of how the priority of many newspapers is to report the news before verifying it, in aatmosphere of competition and chasing – moreover denounced by Chomsky himself in “The factory of consensus: the political economy of the mass media” (2014, Il Saggiatore) – in which we lose sight of what would be the main objective of journalism: correctly informing citizens.
Noam Chomsky was discharged from São Paulo hospital in the evening and will continue treatment at home.
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