News?

Sometimes we give coverage to stories that really don't deserve any.
 
Often assumptions are made about the motivations that are purely speculative and usually wrong.

For example there was a short to do in some papers over a picture of Prom going boys, some of whom looked like they were giving a NAZI salute.  Of course it was also a good interpretation that they froze their arms in the picture when they were just waving.

Looking for the worst in things has become a universal occupation, as people hunt and hope to find something that gets them a few minutes of fame on social media.

Once in a while they find something legitimate but much of the time it is simply a misinterpretation.

Must of what you see on the Internet is simply wrong.

It is simply not held up to any particular standards unless of course it is published by one of the traditional media sources.

Its not much different than it always was, when rumors would get circulated that had little or no basis in fact, sometimes to promote a cause, except that with social media, word of mouth is so much faster.

Its basically how the Russians influenced the last election by posting purely fictitious items and having them spread rapidly without any verification.

This does create a lot of fake news, but not the fake news that the President talks about, he wants to categorize legitimate news as fake news.

In fact, he spreads a lot of fake news himself as much as he lies.

Unfortunately determining what is and what isn't fake becomes our responsibility and we are simply not very good at it.

There are real facts out there, just might be hard to find them.