How a Beloved Soccer Team’s TV Channel Got Red-Pilled
This April, while addressing the media at a press conference ahead of the final of the Copa del Rey in Seville, a soccer referee named Ricardo de Burgos Bengoetxea became emotional. His voice strained. He fought back tears. “When one of your children goes to school and there are kids who tell him that his dad is a thief,” he said, “that’s really fucked up.”
The cause of the referee’s tears was a series of videos produced by Real Madrid TV, a network owned and operated by Real Madrid, arguably the most popular and successful soccer club in the history of the world. The videos, slickly and selectively edited, accused De Burgos Bengoetxea and his colleagues of radical incompetence.
Historically, Real Madrid TV has been an anodyne outlet that, like most team-owned media platforms, provides rosy coverage of its parent club. But in the past few years, the channel has released a barrage of videos promoting alarmist fantasies and outlandish theories, one major theme of which is that Real Madrid is being opposed by organized and nefarious interests dedicated to stopping its triumphs.
Related Knowledge Center: Information integrity
In an increasingly fractured media landscape, truth has been a casualty in the public discussion. Coverage has been warped by the business needs of struggling news organizations, and a significant segment of the public relies on bad-faith outlets that are little more than propagandists. While fact-checking has become routine, some organizations are exploring other ways to combat the trends. And misinformation spewed by AI-driven chatbots has become more of a feature than simply a bug.
Fact-checking and its detractors
Related Knowledge Center: Media literacy
Digital technology has irrevocably altered the media landscape. As traditional sources of credible information — gatekeepers — lose influence, jostled and often replaced by content of uncertain pedigree, many users lack the requisite skills to separate fact from fiction, truth from lies, sense from nonsense. The market doesn’t reward one over the other — social media algorithms often produce better business outcomes with falsehoods — prompting some dedicated efforts to empower users with better critical-thinking tools.