Mercury News has a Google News-featured article up titled “How to tell if it’s fake news.” It contains the same bullshit, boilerplate “fake news” scare meme that the rest of the media has been flogging for weeks now, and of course it can be safely ignored.
Here…I’ll give you my take on “How to tell if it’s fake news.”
Real fake news.
It’s quite simple.
If it is:
1-Unattributed
2-Apparently not only unattributed but unattributable
3-“Leaked” by an anonymous source in the federal government, including the military and especially including any intelligence agency that is itself not so secret that we don’t even know about it.
And/or
4-If it follows the mainstream media fake news spiel of the week or month…like “Da Russkies did it!!!” or “The Electoral Cottage”…errrr, ahhh…”Electoral College should man/woman up and deselect the candidate who won under the rules of the Constitution!!!” most recently, and “HRC will win in a landslide!!! Don’t be left out!!!” since late summer 2016 (until she got her ass handed to her by a clever and/or amazingly lucky mountebank)…it’s fake news.
No matter whether it’s from the Lying Grey Lady, the Washingtoon Post, the Fudge Report Black Bart’s Breitbart or any other large media outlet.
You want the real news? It’s not “Da Russkies did it!!!”, it’s “Da Fix din’t work dis time!!! UH oh!!! What’ll we do now!!!???”
False news my truth-laden Irish Ass!!!
Dassit.
Gotta go to work.
While there still is some.
Later…
AG
Fake “posters” who only rate?
Whatever.
Rant…errr, ahhh, I mean “rate”… on.
AG
Some time ago, Robert Fisk pointed out to beware “official sources say…” Even when they’re identified by name.
That said, FakeNews is much broader than you’ve offered here. It’s any news source — MSM, alternative media, bloggers, and/or social networking — running with and/or pushing a story that hasn’t been properly investigated and lacks verifiable facts. The credibility of the speaker, reporter, etc. is only as good as his/her record of truthful statements/stories/etc. and credibility is supposed to be lost by even one false, misleading, or exaggerated statement/story. And when certain people speak, what they say is the news.
Putin was never “head of the KGB.” So, why has Obama said more than once that he was? And why would a Democratic President be invoking Reagan’s name? Did he miss the part where Reagan was jaw-jawing with Gorbachev? (Not that fibbing has been foreign to Obama in the past eight years.)
I believe he was a KGB General, but that’s not the same. I’m sure the KGB has lots of generals, just like the US Army.
Isn’t it strange how Democrats have resorted to the Red Scare? A commie under every bed is it? Which (D) Senator will emulate McCarthy (the (R) McCarthy)?
Lt. Colonel to be accurate. That was the rank Colin Powell held from 1970 to 1976 when he was promoted to Colonel. Powell’s rise from there was swift after that.
Thanks for the correction.
He was FSB director. Not the KGB, but what came after.
You left out the fact that there were eight years between leaving the KGB and his appointment as FSB Director. Several jobs during those eight years and none appear to have involved “intelligence” work.
Odd that Americans don’t assign the same sort of black mark to USG “intelligence” officers. Perhaps because with seventeen “intel” agencies it’s too diffuse to label all the officers are evil.
Seriously?
Buzzfeed The True Story Behind All Those Fake Articles About Celebrities Moving To Small Towns And Cities. Guess the regular celebrity gossip reporters can’t keep up with the demand these days. Might figure into why the 2016 general election could be called Celebrity POTUS.
Lying isn’t a crime unless it’s under oath (perjury) or to exact a gain (fraud). I wonder if a case could be made for electoral fraud? Someone needs to prosecute deliberate fake news and spam too for that matter.
Lying is a karmic crime, Voice.
A crime against the following concept.
Every lie makes that arc longer and slower.
We need a political party the tactical thrust of which is not based on prevarication and lies. Until we get that, the arc of that moral universe on this particular plane will simply keep extending itself, waiting for the inevitable collapse of a rotted-out system.
AG
Very true, but not the question I was asking. To rephrase: “Can fake news intended to influence an election be considered criminal fraud because it is intended to enrich the fraudsters?” Surely winning an election brings financial rewards, at least a salary. So how is fake news different from the patter of a grifter?
I KNOW morally it’s the same, but can a jury, and more importantly an appellate court be convinced?
YOu write:
Before the recent PermaGov defeat I would have reflexively answered this question with a resounding “No!!”, but now? After the media mind control system has been proven to have lost a great deal of its effectiveness?
I’m really not sure of anything.
The country, the society and the media are all in various states of flux. We’ll know more by mid-spring, I think. By the fall for certain.
Until then?
Your guess is at least as good as mine.
AG
I agree. And articles like this don’t make it look good: http://news.morningstar.com/articlenet/article.aspx?id=784998
And Booman wants to make Paul Ryan President. Read the article and think on it. Why? To punish working people for rejecting their Queen?
So it goes.
AG