Fake News on demand
When considering Fake News, don't overlook demand as an incentive for its shoveling.
"Jared Kushner laughed as Trump used made up Hispanic names to discuss immigrants committing rape, murder: report" was a 3-paragraph, May 25 Newsweek.com item summarizing a Washington Post story run earlier the same day.
http://www.newsweek.com/jared-kushner-laughed-trump-immigrants-944295
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/were-closed-trump-directs-his-anger-over-immigration-at-homeland-security-secretary/2018/05/24/4bd686ec-5abc-11e8-8b92-45fdd7aaef3c_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.5027b9d34ecb
The Newsweek item cited no source other than the Post. That paper, in turn, had also not named a source in its original report. Post writers Josh Dawsey and Nick Miroff claimed unnamed "administration officials" had provided them the damning account.
(Newsweek and the Post did at least mention a White House denial that Trump had used invented names.)
Readers were asked to accept as verity the recounting of a supposed incident by anonymous sources whose credibility and motives they couldn't judge. Even the existence of those alleged witnesses wasn't certain.
Any reasonable person would require more before buying into the story.
But reason was of no consequence to prejudiced haters of the president. The story portrayed Trump in a negative light, and that was all they required. They hied to social media, irresponsibly spreading the dubious tale as far as possible.
Nor were unprincipled rank-and-file partisans alone in the dirty work. The unsourced and questionable Post story was given further broadcast by outlets including Esquire, the New York Post, Think Progress, and Alternet.
(Even had the alleged bandying about of false names during a private meeting actually occurred, the choice of Hispanic-sounding ones would have been logical given that Mexican criminal illegal immigrants were the subject of discussion. In that context, the name 'Sven Gondelblum' certainly doesn't ring as appropriate.)
A great deal has been said about Fake News. Consider, in addition to the dirt it does to the concept of legitimate journalism, the swinish demand factor that encourages it.
There is an audience for Fake News calculated to hurt President Trump. And its scrambling zealots don't give a damn about accuracy, fairness, or truth.
When considering Fake News, don't overlook demand as an incentive for its shoveling.
"Jared Kushner laughed as Trump used made up Hispanic names to discuss immigrants committing rape, murder: report" was a 3-paragraph, May 25 Newsweek.com item summarizing a Washington Post story run earlier the same day.
http://www.newsweek.com/jared-kushner-laughed-trump-immigrants-944295
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/were-closed-trump-directs-his-anger-over-immigration-at-homeland-security-secretary/2018/05/24/4bd686ec-5abc-11e8-8b92-45fdd7aaef3c_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.5027b9d34ecb
The Newsweek item cited no source other than the Post. That paper, in turn, had also not named a source in its original report. Post writers Josh Dawsey and Nick Miroff claimed unnamed "administration officials" had provided them the damning account.
(Newsweek and the Post did at least mention a White House denial that Trump had used invented names.)
Readers were asked to accept as verity the recounting of a supposed incident by anonymous sources whose credibility and motives they couldn't judge. Even the existence of those alleged witnesses wasn't certain.
Any reasonable person would require more before buying into the story.
But reason was of no consequence to prejudiced haters of the president. The story portrayed Trump in a negative light, and that was all they required. They hied to social media, irresponsibly spreading the dubious tale as far as possible.
Nor were unprincipled rank-and-file partisans alone in the dirty work. The unsourced and questionable Post story was given further broadcast by outlets including Esquire, the New York Post, Think Progress, and Alternet.
(Even had the alleged bandying about of false names during a private meeting actually occurred, the choice of Hispanic-sounding ones would have been logical given that Mexican criminal illegal immigrants were the subject of discussion. In that context, the name 'Sven Gondelblum' certainly doesn't ring as appropriate.)
A great deal has been said about Fake News. Consider, in addition to the dirt it does to the concept of legitimate journalism, the swinish demand factor that encourages it.
There is an audience for Fake News calculated to hurt President Trump. And its scrambling zealots don't give a damn about accuracy, fairness, or truth.
posted by DC Larson at
May 25, 2018
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