'Fake News' in America
Homegrown, and Far From New
Hedges, Chris
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/fake_news_homegrown_and_far_from_new_20161218#.WFgM5ViKvXQ.facebook
Date Written: 2016-12-18
Publisher: Truthdig
Year Published: 2016
Resource Type: Article
Cx Number: CX20193
Details the hypocrisy of the media and Democratic party's recent outcry over 'fake news', as the loose definition encompasses well-established media practices, and may be used to attack any alternative media source.
Abstract:
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Excerpts:
Governments do not leak because they care about democracy or a free press; they leak because it is in their interest to bring down someone or something. In most cases, because the reporter verifies the leaked information, the news is not fake. It is when the reporter does not verify the information - as was the case when The New York Times uncritically reported the Bush administration’s false charge that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction in Iraq - that he or she becomes part of the vast fake news industry.
Fake news is now being used in an attempt to paint independent news sites, including Truthdig, and independent journalists as witting or unwitting agents of Russia. Elites of the Republican and Democratic parties are using fake news in an attempt to paint Trump as a stooge of the Kremlin and invalidate the election. No persuasive evidence for such accusations has been made public. But the fake news has become the battering ram in the latest round of Red baiting.
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