FAKE News Primer

All I am hearing from the Trump White House is Fake this and Fake that. The media are liars, the news is fake. But not all the news! The news that Trump agrees with, he says that is real. There is also the concern about fake news stories that have been deliberately planted to influence us. It gets very confusing. So I decided to see if I could make it simple.

FAKE NEWS

1. Fake News has been around forever. Remember standing in line at the grocery store, pre internet days? Right at eye level were magazines with sensational headlines designed to entice you to buy them. Sometimes it was just too tempting to resist and I took the bait.  Most of the time I couldn't find the article that was on the front page. Other times it would be there but was something totally different from the sensational title. Fake News. Entertaining. No harm done.

2. Clickbait. This is another form of fake news. I saw them on Facebook all the time, not so much lately, thankfully. It's usually a sensational headline on a suggested post that gets you to click on it. A popular one was about a dead celebrity that you thought was alive. "Oh my God, they died?" CLICK. It turns out to be a major disappointment, a flim flam, bait and switch scam designed just to get your click so the advertiser can make money. Not nice. Pretty tacky. A little frustrating, not so entertaining, but still no real harm done.

3. Disinformation and Misinformation.  Distortions, fabrications, and other amusements. 

This is the stuff that SNOPES was created to combat. The ever circulating rumors and urban legends that are not true, yet people seem to believe them and pass them around and around on social media for years. No, you can't protect your privacy on Facebook by "cutting and pasting" a disclaimer. There is no couple trying to hack into your computer and drain its contents by friending you on facebook. And a bunch of others. They are annoying. Most are harmless. Do us all a service and fact check your stuff if it looks at all suspicious. Sometime people throw around stats that have no actual information behind them, like Trumps unemployment rate. The purpose of this misinformation is to make the person look more informed than they are. Very important for all of us to fact check and be discerning. If it seems crazy, it just might be.

4. Lies. Damn Lies. More Lies. I think most of us presume in this country that people tell the truth. Yes, of course there is wiggle room, interpretation, and perception issues, but basically we expect people, media, government to pretty much tell a version of the truth as Jack Nicholson would say.  Unless they don't. Famous lies include Nixon telling us he is not a crook and Bill Clinton's "I did not have sexual relations with that woman".  But now we are in a whole new ball game, where truth has become "alternative facts".


The Trump administration has taken lying to whole level never seen before.
Take for instance the nonexistent Bowling Green Massacre and the crowd size at Trumps inauguration. Side by side photos proved to our own eyes that Trumps crowd was not the biggest ever, yet the lies were repeated by Trump, Spicer and Kellyanne Conway.

Repeating what is not true until people start to second guess themselves is called gaslighting. It is a tactic designed to disempower and confuse.  As Chico Marx said, "who you going to believe? Me or your lying eyes?". It is stunning to see Spicer, or Conway repeat the lies in the face of abundant and opposing evidence. But this is not to be dismissed as stupidity or craziness. Whether intentional, or incidental, it keeps people off balance, second guessing themselves, confused, bewildered and ineffectual.  It is also exhausting which may be the purpose, to wear the opposition down. John Podesta urges Americans to "maintain a heightened vigilance" and be wary of everything we read on social media. But also be wary of any effort, particularly from the White House, to disorient or discredit reliable information."

We all must continue to fact check and keep truth alive and visible! 

5. Propaganda. This is the malignant version of lies and fake news. Propaganda is information that may or may not be true, is generally biased or misleading and is used to promote a political cause or point of view. The master manipulator of propaganda was Joseph Goebbels. He could spin anything and get you to believe exactly what he wanted you to believe. The current administration is using propaganda to promote an agenda of fear. The repeated message is that we are not safe, people different from us, immigrants (of which most of us are) are dangerous and that he alone can save us. This is untrue and needs to be challenged on every front.

UPDATE: After a disorganized and rambling press conference recently, Trump silenced a Jewish reporter for asking a question about anti-semitism. After telling him to shut up and sit down, Trump responded that he was the least anti semitic person ever. Propaganda.  When Trump tells us repeatedly we are not safe and that he will make us safe: Propaganda. When we are told Muslims and immigrants are dangerous: Propaganda. What is most important is that we see through this rhetoric, support our journalists in their courageous job of reporting the truth and that we do not become too exhausted to stand our ground.


So that's my primer. Fake news of all kinds. Do know this: The truth is always the truth.  Our media is not perfect, but it is an important part of the fabric of our democracy! Media is not the enemy of the American people, it is its saving grace.

Alfred Worm. Journalist.