Archive

Fake News

  • Apple
    What's your opinion on what has become known with the moniker "Fake News"?

    Is all just Internet wanna-be's and start-ups?
    Is it the MSM? (Main Stream Media... CNN, ABC, CBS, ABC, Washington Post, NY Times, LA Times etc.)

    Where does a story get credibility these days?

    Things are getting more and more unbelievable these days. Could that be the ultimate goal... dilute the story until no one believes anything?
  • Apple
    Automatik;1827774 wrote:Decent Planet Money episode on this topic:

    http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/12/02/504155809/episode-739-finding-the-fake-news-king
    Interesting story profile on link.

    What's to say NPR isn't adding to the fake news scheme?

    If I remember, NPR pretty much slants to the left.
  • iclfan2
    Buzz feed, vox, huff post, salon, rolling stone, slate, breitbart. Are all what I consider fake news.

    But the big ones do it too. Writing articles just to write articles is stupid. Basic, objective journalism is all but dead.

    I'm assuming you meant "fake news" as in articles that are just completely wrong, dumb, or blatantly biased, and not actually fake stories from a made up news source.

    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
  • Apple
    Blatantly biased/wrong yes. But I agree... objective journalism is all but dead.

    Its almost like you need to know the background of the source/media outlet before you can form an opinion whether the story is biased or not.

    Yellow journalism on steroids?
  • Automatik
    Apple;1827775 wrote:Interesting story profile on link.

    What's to say NPR isn't adding to the fake news scheme?

    If I remember, NPR pretty much slants to the left.
    I suggest you actually listen to the episode.
  • BoatShoes
    Apple;1827775 wrote:Interesting story profile on link.

    What's to say NPR isn't adding to the fake news scheme?

    If I remember, NPR pretty much slants to the left.
    NPR only slants to the left to people who think pizzagate deserves aerious investigation. But hey tgat's like 45 million Americans lol
  • majorspark
    Fake news is not some new phenomenon. Its always been where people frequent. So today with modern communication fake news has moved beyond cementing its place in the check out isle at your local grocery store to also cementing its place in social media. Its not going go away in a free market. There is a market for this shit and a lot of people lap it up.

    Now as to the current media buzz over fake news, like it is some sort of new danger to democracy, is because Donald Trump is the president elect and Hillary is not. If Hillary had won trust me none of us would be hearing about this new phenomenon of fake news. Fake news is not why Hillary lost the election.
  • BoatShoes
    majorspark;1827785 wrote:Fake news is not some new phenomenon. Its always been where people frequent. So today with modern communication fake news has moved beyond cementing its place in the check out isle at your local grocery store to also cementing its place in social media. Its not going go away in a free market. There is a market for this shit and a lot of people lap it up.

    Now as to the current media buzz over fake news, like it is some sort of new danger to democracy, is because Donald Trump is the president elect and Hillary is not. If Hillary had won trust me none of us would be hearing about this new phenomenon of fake news. Fake news is not why Hillary lost the election.
    Agree with this.
  • Apple
    Automatik;1827783 wrote:I suggest you actually listen to the episode.
    I did.
  • Apple
    BoatShoes;1827784 wrote:NPR only slants to the left to people who think pizzagate deserves aerious investigation. But hey tgat's like 45 million Americans lol
    Since adulthood, I don't much listen to any news from NPR. To me it's like the "60 Minutes" of radio. Amazing that NPR and public television have continued to be federally funded, even at all. With the programming that has been ingrained into US culture by NPR and PBS, a serious capitalist could run them far better at a profit it would seem.
  • ptown_trojans_1
    This is something I noticed back in 2008 and I guess now it is just more widespread. To me, it is a mixture of things that has lead to the spread of fake news: People don't trust mainstream media, there are more outlets now to cater to your specific viewpoint (or bubble), there are people out there writing fake headlines to get clicks in this facebook/ twitter driven world, and people are insanely gullible at times and will believe anything if it fits their viewpoint and confirms their own bias.

    News today is not really about the facts, it is about clicks. It is a throwback to the old late 1800s days of papers. Sometimes the facts get in the way of a good story, so to speak. Writers will infer, speculate, throw in their views, or reports false items and claim it as true just to get the click. There is a market for it, and obviously, it has made an impact.

    The market is also there because no one trusts the mainstream press anymore. Their credibility has tanked since 2003 really since the Iraq War. As such, even if it is a big true story or ground breaking news, like the NYT on Trump's taxes, or Wapo on Trump Foundation, it is not accepted or dismissed as meh, they are bias and the story does not matter.

    In that space has filled the fake news, or even the half truth news, where a quote is taken out of context and blown up. I remember ton of them during the 2008 campaign such as the idea that Obama is a Muslim or from Kenya.

    The solution: Like a lot of things, better education and critical thinking skills. Understanding how to read the news and to diversify news sources may help eventually to reduce the impact of fake news. But, it will still remain as some people are gullible.
  • Belly35
    High school History class we had to do a short report on the newspaper article weekly. It was a great lesson because it provided students to voice their opinion about the current events. What was more important to me was the different view of the same article. Fake news, gum shoe reporting ... Has to be read or listen .....not sure many of today youth are capable
  • sleeper
    Fake news is only a problem if it doesn't support what you believe. If its something you want to believe, its real news and those who try to discredit it don't like the truth.

    The idea of 'fact checking' is now a political tool. Quite strange.
  • Spock
    news reporting is all about the propaganda that needs to be heard.
  • Heretic
    Fake news is the sort of news that's tailor-made for people like CC.
  • FatHobbit
    ptown_trojans_1;1827823 wrote:there are people out there writing fake headlines to get clicks in this facebook/ twitter driven world, and people are insanely gullible at times and will believe anything if it fits their viewpoint and confirms their own bias.
    I am amazed daily at news articles that are shared on Facebook by people I believe to be intelligent. How can they possibly believe this shit is true? And then when Obama doesn't force everyone to convert to Islam they are right back to posting more bullshit the next day.
  • Heretic
    FatHobbit;1827925 wrote:I am amazed daily at news articles that are shared on Facebook by people I believe to be intelligent. How can they possibly believe this shit is true? And then when Obama doesn't force everyone to convert to Islam they are right back to posting more bullshit the next day.
    Almost as bad as when people post obviously fake stories and then, when they're told they're fake enough times, suddenly start acting like they knew it all along and were just "testing" others.
  • Spock
    i consider most news (CNN, MSNBC) types to be fake news because they may report a story that is real but they literally lie to fit their political narrative.
  • CenterBHSFan
    Remember this pathetic attempt by a man claiming Obama was his ex?

    [video=youtube;1uJyJGHbKlo][/video]

    In the past months, though, CNN has really sunk to the bottom; I now consider them to be on the same level as MSNBC.

    [video=youtube;6jlvHmNh76E][/video]

    What's disheartening the most about CNN is that they used to have much more integrity. Absolutely no one can make that claim at this point.
  • bases_loaded
    The media is more concerned with creating a story and selling than reporting the news.

    I experienced this first hand with the local paper a couple months ago. They sensationalized a headline on a controversial subject and the only person in that room that came out of the meeting with not only the headline but the context of the meeting was the one who wrote and published the article. I'm sure they sold more papers with that headline than they would of had they waited to report the actual story and since then I have cancelled my subscription, but while I have always known big media was all about business, it was troubling to see the local fish wrap do the same.
  • like_that
    It also doesn't help when our politicians perpetuate fake news to fit their agenda.
  • Apple
    El Papa Francisco has weighed in on the subject:
    "Francis told the Belgian Catholic weekly "Tertio" that spreading disinformation was "probably the greatest damage that the media can do" and using communications for this rather than to educate the public amounted to a sin."
    https://ca.news.yahoo.com/pope-warns-media-over-sin-spreading-fake-news-141839037.html

    Spreading disinformation is bad bad bad!
  • gut
    like_that;1827974 wrote:It also doesn't help when our politicians perpetuate fake news to fit their agenda.
    The politicization of the media, economics and - most people won't realize - science is beyond alarming. We basically have dual state-run propaganda machines (and not sure how separate they actually are). Or in the latter two cases, at minimum, it's journalists cherry picking and spinning to fit their agenda.