A lie travels halfway around the world before the truth gets its shoes on

Artificial intelligence has made it increasingly difficult to distinguish genuine footage from fabrication. A video once seemed to offer some reassurance that an event had happened as shown.
That confidence is fading, and we are approaching a point where seeing an image may no longer be enough to tell us what is real. I was reminded of this recently when I visited a friend who is highly skilled at creating AI videos. He showed me films using entirely AI, featuring images of me, him, his wife, his brother, his daughter and his son. The results were astonishingly realistic. In one film I appeared as a heroic warrior. I felt flattered, but also unsettled: without knowing how it had been made, I might have mistaken it for a professionally produced documentary.
A talented creator can now place familiar faces in imagined situations with relative ease. AI can be a powerful tool for entertainment, but the same technology can mislead, damage reputations and influence public opinion. A familiar face or voice is not proof that someone said or did what appears on screen. The problem extends beyond artificial intelligence.
Investigative journalism is a thing of the past. Some western news outlets appear to have fewer resources for original reporting and rely instead on material first published elsewhere.
Stories are then repeated, sometimes almost verbatim. This can create the impression of confirmation that a news report is based on fact. Repetition is not independent verification and several outlets carrying the same claim do not necessarily provide several separate pieces of evidence.
YouTube can sometimes be useful for finding news and analysis, but often videos are outdated, recycled or presented without enough context to show when they were made.
A clip from an earlier event can be reposted as if it were current, sometimes with a changed date or title. Viewers who see a dramatic scene and a recent timestamp may assume the footage is new, even if the original recording is years old.
A skilled AI video producer can recreate familiar content without checking its accuracy, then frame it in a way that misleads viewers about the news based on facts.
This uncertainty has changed how I keep up with the news. I rarely use YouTube as a way to follow current events. I prefer newspapers that report the news factually without sensationalising it, such as the Oman Observer. No outlet should be accepted uncritically and independence does not guarantee accuracy.
A newspaper article should provide context, identify its sources and make clear what is known, what remains uncertain and what is still being investigated.
When an extraordinary claim is circulating, we should ask who first published it, when and where the footage was recorded, whether independent evidence supports it and whether the video itself proves what its accompanying account claims.
We should also ask whether video news reports are independently produced or AI-recreated from the same original story and subtly altered to mislead viewers.
A voice-over, a recent upload date, or widespread circulation is not confirmation. The point is not to accuse anyone of deception, but to recognise how difficult it has become to establish the truth from images and repeated reports alone.
Neither a viral YouTube clip nor material broadcast by a national media organisation should automatically be treated as proof. We need transparent information about where images came from, meaningful independent corroboration and reporting that goes beyond copying what others have already published — especially when governments or other powerful actors may use fabricated or manipulated material for political purposes.
AI will continue to produce remarkable films, while recycled footage and recycled reporting will continue to blur the line between current events and old claims.
As synthetic images become more convincing, our confidence can no longer rest on the old belief that seeing is believing. The value of visual evidence depends on careful verification and the value of journalism depends on doing the work to find and check the facts.

Karim Easterbrook - The writer is a Former Cambridge School Principal and Author