REDUX
Every journey circles home
In Cyprus, “fake news” doesn’t mean lies anymore, it means "delete"; whatever disrupts the Presidential décor vanishes under the fake label.
Take the photo of President Christodoulides with Mother Maria of the far-right faithful: first written off as fake, it was in fact real (...) The woman, whose ELAM-affiliated daughter was recently appointed to Vienna, is notorious for her vitriolic Facebook tirades against anyone who dares to disagree. The picture shows a warm greeting, laced with admiration, to be fair, the poor President looking a little caught off guard. Yet rather than let it pass, the Presidency rushed to brand it “fabricated.”
The same playbook was used against Haravgi and dialogos.com.cy when they reported on an official European Commission assessment of Cyprus. Instead of engaging with the findings, the Presidency dismissed the story as "fake news", as if the Commission’s report needed holy water to be believed. The problem is obvious: the thinner the President’s skin looks, the more his critics will pile on. And someone in his communications team should remind him: repeat the same line too often, and people simply tune out.
But this is more than a PR blunder. When the government lumps serious journalism together with random Facebook rants, it devalues the Press as a whole. And when it refuses to accept criticism of any kind, that is not just a personal weakness in leadership, it is a direct blow to freedom of expression and to democracy itself.
The irony is that genuine disinformation floods the internet, yet the government chooses to cheapen the term "fake news," reducing it to a slogan that undermines its seriousness and discredits the very journalism needed to fight it. "Fake news" sticks easily, like an election poster, and peels away just as quickly. Unlike pre-election promises that fade, though, slander leaves a lasting mark.
And here lies the danger: it fuels the idea that “all media are the same,” just as many citizens claim that “all politicians are the same.” Media Groups don’t make that generalisation, but the Presidency’s blanket dismissals encourage it. Instead of defending public debate, it undermines it.
What Cyprus needs most is a transparent dialogue, where actual fake news, doctored videos, and manipulation campaigns are exposed with facts. Because the greatest fake news of all is the pretence that everything is “just the same.” It isn’t. And every honest news report proves that daily.