How fake news happens
A 3/3 Associated Press story noted that St. Louis, Missouri man Juan Thompson had been arrested for allegedly perpetrating numerous threats against Jewish institutions nationwide, including one phoned in to New York's Anti-Defamation League.
http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2017-03-03-US-Jewish-Groups-Threats/id-4f80b7cfa30a40bab7548c4341d42dfc
Thompson had apparently made the threats in an ugly effort to discredit a former girlfriend.
The AP account included essential information that conflicted with a sour liberal narrative familiar in this salutary Trump era of resurgent American pride. Similar to "The butler did it" cliche is today's partisan article-of-faith mantra "The alt-right is to blame."
But this particular incident does not support that mantra. Thompson, a black man, had previously been on the staffs of pronouncedly Left media organs Raw Story and Intercept, the Glenn Greenwald endeavor.
Source: The Intercept
And the AP also observed that Thompson "was fired from the Intercept last year after he was accused of fabricating several quotes and creating false email accounts to impersonate people, one of whom was the Intercept's editor-in-chief, Betsy Reed."
(Thompson had also confected quotes in an Intercept article about Dylann Roof, the thoroughly cretinous, racially bileful Charleston, South Carolina church shooter. Other media outlets later spread Thompson's manufactured stories to broader, trusting readerships.)
According to the AP article, the Anti-Defamation League said that Thompson had been "on its radar ever since he fabricated the story about Roof."
Iowa's KWWL ran a truncated rendition of the AP story on its website. But missing from its version, notably, were the very factors that conflicted with the liberal narrative. Thompson's color was not mentioned (the channel included no photo in its online version), nor his political affinities, as were apparent in his Left news site employment history.
This writer does not know if KWWL aired a more complete take in its TV broadcast. But whether the incomplete rendition on KWWL's online site was 'shortened for syndication' by the AP or one contrived by the station itself is irrelevant to the point that it was effectively deceptive. Undiscerning viewers were left with a false impression.
And a counterfeit, partisan narrative was advanced -- with ominous consequences: "Alt-right = Nazis...need to be punched in the face," was one misled viewer's posting on KWWL's Facebook page.
end
A 3/3 Associated Press story noted that St. Louis, Missouri man Juan Thompson had been arrested for allegedly perpetrating numerous threats against Jewish institutions nationwide, including one phoned in to New York's Anti-Defamation League.
http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2017-03-03-US-Jewish-Groups-Threats/id-4f80b7cfa30a40bab7548c4341d42dfc
Thompson had apparently made the threats in an ugly effort to discredit a former girlfriend.
The AP account included essential information that conflicted with a sour liberal narrative familiar in this salutary Trump era of resurgent American pride. Similar to "The butler did it" cliche is today's partisan article-of-faith mantra "The alt-right is to blame."
But this particular incident does not support that mantra. Thompson, a black man, had previously been on the staffs of pronouncedly Left media organs Raw Story and Intercept, the Glenn Greenwald endeavor.
And the AP also observed that Thompson "was fired from the Intercept last year after he was accused of fabricating several quotes and creating false email accounts to impersonate people, one of whom was the Intercept's editor-in-chief, Betsy Reed."
(Thompson had also confected quotes in an Intercept article about Dylann Roof, the thoroughly cretinous, racially bileful Charleston, South Carolina church shooter. Other media outlets later spread Thompson's manufactured stories to broader, trusting readerships.)
According to the AP article, the Anti-Defamation League said that Thompson had been "on its radar ever since he fabricated the story about Roof."
Iowa's KWWL ran a truncated rendition of the AP story on its website. But missing from its version, notably, were the very factors that conflicted with the liberal narrative. Thompson's color was not mentioned (the channel included no photo in its online version), nor his political affinities, as were apparent in his Left news site employment history.
This writer does not know if KWWL aired a more complete take in its TV broadcast. But whether the incomplete rendition on KWWL's online site was 'shortened for syndication' by the AP or one contrived by the station itself is irrelevant to the point that it was effectively deceptive. Undiscerning viewers were left with a false impression.
And a counterfeit, partisan narrative was advanced -- with ominous consequences: "Alt-right = Nazis...need to be punched in the face," was one misled viewer's posting on KWWL's Facebook page.
end
posted by DC Larson at
March 03, 2017
1 Comments:
Our country will be looking at a questionable path if honesty is not demanded, and practiced, by all. We can't hide facts that support a contrary position and we dare not fabricate to prop up our own. We must embrace what unites us all and stand together. We can disagree must without malice.
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