Entertaining Lies

Before we had fake news we had false narratives.

Its a technique where facts are taken out of context and spun into a whole new story.

This has been done throughout history as a way to justify actions which were in fact unjustifiable.

When Hitler invaded Poland, the German people were told how Poland attacked first.

We have the Gulf of Tonkin incident which may represent a similar rearrangement of facts.

The only real defense we have is a free press.  However  the thing which can defeat a free press is fake news.

If you have news outlets which follow no rules and publish stories meant to confuse and contradict we can create a confused public.

This seems to be the main tactic currently being employed by the Republican party, although of course in their version it is the Democrats.

Too many Americans have bought into alternative news outlets, some of which have high ratings, because they tend to be more controversial and entertaining.

So faced with boring legitimate news vs entertaining false narratives, we have to hope Americans make the right choice.

Its a close call.

Fake News?

Fake news has become a term that is used quite frequently nowadays mostly as a way to simply deny some facts.

The great majority of news is not fake, but some is and the best way to distinguish is not by listening to politicians but to consider the source.

First, there are shows on "news" networks that are opinion shows, not news shows.

When someone on one of those shows announces something it doesn't have to live up to any journalistic standards and is primarily designed for entertainment and ratings.

A lot of it is simply speculative, and while they are entitled to do that it is incumbent on the viewer to realize the speculation, no matter how logical it might sound, is generally one sided and the facts, if any, presented were chosen to prove a point.

It is more in the line of an infomercial rather than a news story.

Still many viewers don't make those distinctions.

The vast majority of what is published in the mainstream media is in fact real news, although some mistakes and phony stories get published or aired.

The more reputable or recognized the more likely the screening is effective, but, there always is the make it interesting factor.

They want you to watch or read or listen to what they are putting on so they try to find the entertaining factors.  So in many perfectly accurate news stories you will see something inserted such as in the opinion of x this means something dreadful is likely.  This is actually true but that opinion may very well not be the only one or even the best one.

It is accurate that it is that person's opinion, so not fake news.  Its the opinion that might be the problem.

Stick with the fact from a reputable source and form your own opinion, is probably the safest approach.

Hint of Racism?

When you see the candidates put up by the administration and sometimes confirmed by the Senate, you have to wonder does anyone actually look into these guys?

Forget about their political beliefs but when candidate after candidate has questionable issues in their background that indicate they may have been engaged in a racist activity or maybe sexual abuse, why not find someone without those issues?

It seems like they just don't care or at least the administration doesn't.

The explanation is that the qualities they look for are more about loyalty than character and qualifications.

If you have been a loyal member of the party or loyal to the dontard, a nomination is your reward.

Now patronage of this sort has always been a part of politics, although over the years attempts have been made to reduce it.  The success of those attempts are obviously limited.

Prior administrations generally tried to present candidates who could survive a background investigation into their character, at least a legitimate one.

That is part of the problem as the explosion of cable news and Internet sources have led to many bogus conspiracy and character accusations.

If you entertain the idea that some prominent democrats ran a sex ring our of a pizzeria in Washington D.C. (they didn't), these accusations seem tame.

It is hard to determine what is valid vs what isn't with all the bogus stuff being tossed about.

There is plenty of fake news, its just not published by the reputable news agencies.

CNN or the New York Times may have an editorial opinion but what they broadcast or publish is consistent with journalistic standards.  The same can't be said for many others who express unfounded opinions which have no foundation.

Unfortunately, this is often mistaken for actual news when it isn't.

It creates a kind of smoke screen for the actual issues.

Fake News and Conspriacies

If you survive a shooting even in America these days, you still have to deal with the NRA trolls.

If you don't know what I'm referring to the Washington Post had a good story about the situation.

Trolling Survivors

Its a sad state of affairs but an inevitable one in today's day and age.

Of course its a result of our tremendous technological advances, that these people can so easily find each other and spread their hate.

They have always existed but life was much more difficult for them and their ability to reach a large audience quite limited.

Having so much information available means that much of that information is going to be erroneous and the only real solutions would be something that reduced freedom of speech, which is just unacceptable.

The good solution would be to have a public that didn't so easily buy into these false stories and conspiracies, but we have a public which has been conditioned by cable news to believe some pretty outrageous things.

You can usually spot this type of things fairly easily because they can't prove what they claim so they resort to attacking the unknowable.

For example, they will list a series of events and argue their is some connection without offering any proof and demand someone else prove their is no connection.

Even if someone could or would take the time to prove such a thing (and proving a negative is often impossible) why should they?  Facts should generally speak for themselves.

Take a fairly widespread theory that the moon landings were staged.  Could we have done it?  Maybe, but the argument simply rests upon alleging they were staged and asking for proof they weren't.  Shouldn't they have to prove they were staged?

Making unfounded allegations and demanding to be proven wrong isn't an acceptable argument.

Don't fall for it.

Clinton Obsession

It doesn't matter if you like the Clintons or detest them they apparently get you sales or clicks or attention when you attack them.

Long after it could possibly matter to anything we see articles or speeches about what her campaign did or did not do about a sexual harasser in 2008, whether she was given preferential treatment during the silly investigation into her e-mails, as well as continuing allegations about how they misused or misused their foundation.

Since there has never been a lack of public scrutiny on anything they do I feel safe to predict that none of this will amount to anything except, as I said a few extra clicks, a few extra sales or a bit more press coverage.

Clearly the people who have grown to hate them aren't ever going to be satisfied until the unprovable is proven.

Oddly while there are a certain number who are convinced they are evil and should be punished, both of them are still among the most admired people in the country.

It seems like a real love hate relationship, although the hate seems much more virulent.

A lot of conspiracy theories are kept alive by our fo(a)z(ke) news media joke with seemingly endless discussion of all the evil things they have done.

It sold and it still sells, so they keep pushing it.

Its more than a fad, its a real obsession.

Accurate News

The dotard in the White House tried to list fake news items on the GOP web site which promptly crashed a couple of times.  The items included a few know instances of media mistakes and one was an opinion piece which by definition is not news.

Looking at the things included, in the list, most of them were of little consequence in the first place, did it matter it someone did or did not shake the dotard's hand or if a bust was or was not removed from the oval office?

If these are the examples of fake news that they could come up with, I would argue it demonstrates the fact that the vast majority of items are actually accurate and when a mistake occurs it is quickly corrected.

Per a PBS-Marist Poll 58% of respondents trust their favorite news outlet more than the dotard with slightly less than a third going the other way. 

Our mainstream media has always had many checks and rules in place to report accurately.  Of course mistakes happen, but they are relatively rare and normally quickly corrected.

There is of course a need to distinguish between fact and opinion and much of what is in the media is opinion and not required to conform to the same standards.  Some of the people who have popular opinion shows purport to report facts on occasion and those should be held to the same journalistic standards as regular reporting but generally aren't.

You can strive to be accurate or you can strive to avoid legal penalties, the two things are different.

Unfortunately we have a ton of new media and much of it doesn't try to be accurate, only beyond prosecution.

This creates some of the sense that fake news is prevalent, and in some cases it is, but it is partly our responsibility to know who is publishing the item and what standard they use.

It isn't that hard most of the Times.

Fake News and those who believe it.

Sometimes you talk to someone and they say something so wrong that you don't know what to do.

For example there are people who argue that the Earth is flat.  This despite the fact that by now enough people have circumnavigated it to fill a small country and there are countless pictures from space.

Since the new way to deny the obvious is to declare it fake news or a conspiracy, you reveal yourself as being part of one or the other when you dispute him/her.

Something has gone very wrong when a larger than usual group of people hold views that are simply inane.

I'm not talking about people who think aliens exist or that there was more than one shooter involved in the JFK assassination, although I guess some it started with those people.

There are people with shows that espouse views that are simply dangerous and ridiculous but have a lot of listeners.

Denying Sandy Hook or the Las Vegas shootings as being staged by a group that is trying to take away guns, I think that's the argument, is cruel and vicious to the survivors of those events and relatives of the victims who know first hand that the events were very real.

The idea that we live in a society where lies are assumed is a sad statement and unfortunately if the argument is that everything you produce as proof is fabricated, then there is no real way to argue with them.

They are best ignored but we have theories going around spread by these people that are in fact dangerous.

Take the anti-vac people who are causing diseases to re-appear that were close to eliminated.

The very small risk related to taking vaccinations is nothing compared to the risk of the diseases themselves.

Ignore the fact that the industries in the world have been spewing dangerous and unknown chemical into the atmosphere at breakneck speed, and blame certain development on tested and approved medical treatments sponsored by those get rich quick doctors.

If you react the same way to every risk, you would probably never leave your house without a load of  heavy duty sunscreen, you certainly wouldn't drive or fly and probably realize that walking or running were likely to kill you any second now.

What we really need in this country is a return to common sense where we realize that what you see in the movies or on TV is not necessarily representative of the real world and people who tell you everyone else is lying to you are the ones doing the lying.

Less virtual and more actual reality please.

Lets hope Abe was right

A lot of the issues we tend to get excited about don't impact most of us very directly.

Generally we get up we go to work or engage in various activities regardless of the latest items being debated.  Of course the ultimate outcome may have a significant impact on our lives but it also may not.

In fact for most of us the less the Government is involved the better.  We want Government to be like a referee or umpire who enforces the rules but is barely noticed.

What the rules are is of course important and we want the rules to be fair and evenly applied.

However many of our politicians have clearly traded their integrity for political donations and support and have to take care of the people who bought them.

Ultimately they still have to get votes and depend on most people being susceptible to sound bites and misleading headlines.

This techniques which is not new found new power as we saw the rise of social media and web sites the pretended to report news but really were just propaganda outlets.

It has led us to the point we are at now, where we see a lot of smoke obscuring the truth.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion but it helps if the opinion is based on factual information, not propaganda.

The good news is that you can't keep reporting things that don't match reality for very long.

Abe Lincoln famously said that you can't fool all of the people all of the time. 

Lets hope he was right.

Public Relations

In a world where some deliberately lie and publish lies, an honest mistake is problematic.

We all know mistakes happen and we use to accept that fact and accept honest apologies as the end of the matter.

However, if you are potentially at fault and a host of stories point out your real issues, one honest mistaken story becomes a god send.

You use the one to try to discredit all the actual reporting.

Its merely showmanship and its designed to sway the home crowd and maybe put some doubt in the undecided.

Now we live in a world where everything is framed as adversarial, at least more so than ever before.

Instead of laying out your case, its easier to try to discredit your nemesis.

no one is perfect and pointing our errors and fallacies can be effective, even if in the long or short run they have no impact on the issue.

Its something we have all learned to live with and its a sad development.

So grab some mud and start slinging, you'll get used to it.

Fake News?

Even though it might appear that we have more access to information the fact is the increased amount has led to almost as much bad information as good information.

All this bad information looks and often feels just like the valid information available.

The primary providers of this data have not taken significant efforts to restrict it for a number of reasons, one being that it would in fact be hard and confrontational.

In the days when mainstream media provided facts you could rest assured that they had a process designed to filter our bullshit.

Was it always successful?  Of course not, but they did put a lot of effort into it and you could use what they provided with a certain degree of confidence.

However now often total bullshit is intertwined with real facts to such a degree that the average person has no way of telling.

For example, if you goggle Sandy Hook the third choice on the list is the Sandy Hook Conspiracies which then leads to pros and cons about whether the event was staged.

Now I am certain beyond any reasonable doubt that this tragedy took place, the news coverage the tragedy were all too horrid.

So why is there any question about it?  Well because we have people in this country who either for a political or social reason like to question these things.

Similarly, the vaccination debate is based on total bullshit that was debunked long ago about a mysterious link to autism.  Yet once again the "controversy" lives on because of the internet.

We all have a responsibility to know we are dealing with real issues and not argue over silly theories that are simply contrived.

So the earth is round, we did land on the moon, vaccinations do not cause autism, the tragedy at Sandy Hook was all too real, and so on.

focus on what's real people.

Fake News in Trouble

The fake news industry with the Fox news channel in the forefront had a thriving period.

This was due to a number of factors, one that it was sort of entertaining and two that most of what they talked about couldn't be tested easily.

Of course this fake news was directed at people who felt that it wasn't worth responding to.

Sex dungeons under a Pizzeria in Washington DC?  Who would ever believe that.

Taking the tiniest bit of almost factual information and spinning it into a web of lies was where they excelled, and as I said it was a bit amusing.

However, what it can't stand up to is the bright lights of success.

When you actually go under the Pizzeria and find nothing, or the whole web of deceit about Benghazi and E-Mails goes no where.

After a while it stops being amusing and simply sad.

Throw some sex scandals and worse of all, someone in authority who believes the crap you broadcast.

Now the lies you spread get wide notice and they get fact checked.

You promote a silly conspiracy theory similar to many others and suddenly it gets enough attention that you actually retract it.

Now perhaps its still too early to tell, but advertising and ratings are down and the lies are getting exposed.

Maybe the glory days of fake news are fading.

Just Maybe.

Fake Issues

It just seems that we now have real and imaginary issues shoved at us constantly.

Take respect for the American flag.

I tend to think most people feel the same way about the flag that they always did.  It became a political symbol back in the 60's when young people burned it during protests.  It of course was used by others to show support for the Government.  It became a fashion item which was offensive to some but then it became something that you wore to show patriotism and the general sense was that it wasn't an issue.

Now there were always a those who felt it should be treated respectfully in accordance with flag etiquette and they let everyone know.  However generally it flew above schools and post offices as well as other Government buildings, graced certain bikinis, and was otherwise fulfilling its general function.

I guarantee, there is no movement of significance related to the flag itself, although at times in protests against America or its policies it is used as a symbol of what is being protested.

However during the last election there was a surprising amount of uproar about the flag and who was for it and who was against it.  Also lots of stories, generally untrue, about schools or other institutions that wouldn't fly it.  I still get these every so often, I think pushed out by fake news organizations that know its a surefire way to get a few clicks and it gets shared but why?

Is there any widespread movement to change it or disrespect it? 

I'm not aware of any and outside of a small group, the flag is widely loved and respected by Americans.  So why the fake outrage over it?

It makes these sites money when you click on them and it generates advertising revenue. 

So who is really disrespecting the flag?

Alternative Facts?

We now have a new term for lies, but I guess it isn't surprising since the whole campaign was based on it.

Its not the first time that we were told black is white or up is down.  We just seem to believe it more.

The crowd size at the inauguration is a trivial matter but of course the despot has to be the best and biggest.

We see the same behavior in countries like North Korea and of course I read today that he will hand pick what press has access to his press conferences.

I would think the entire press should refuse to attend under such circumstances but well see if they have the courage of their convictions or not.

Trying to control the press is something all tyrants attempt.

Its interesting that he is so blatant about it, thinking he got elected with some sort of mandate because a few people in some rust belt states believed his lies.

The press let him get away with a lot of this by allowing the right, the Russians and the fake news organizations with some FBI assistance to force alternative facts to be promulgated about Hillary Clinton.

The things the press harped about were in fact nothing at all, emails, charitable foundations, and Benghazi.  It was not fake news but the facts were pretty clear and the alternative reality presented by the press was ridiculous.

Of course they are now going to have to live with those transgressions.  They treated these alternative facts as valid so they will get more and more of them.

When they reported alternative facts without pointing that out they were lies they gave them validity.

The press has demonstrated its lack of backbone and its lack of ethics.

They fall for staged media events and ignore the very real scandals in front of them.

They are easily manipulated, look how much attention they gave to the women Trump paraded from Bill Clinton's past, who certainly had nothing to do with Hillary's campaign and allowed the sexist statements by Trump to be well trumped. 

 Of course its a free press, who would pay for this crap?

Fake News

One of the greatest beneficiaries of fake new last election was Donald Trump as the vast amount of the fake stuff was directed at the Clintons.

In fact he is a firm believer in some of the fake stuff and propagates it himself in tweets about celebrations that never happened, guilty rapists and other things.

Certainly some of the fake news was directed at him, my impression was to a much smaller extent than the other side, but I don't know if there is anyone actually measuring it. 

Of course now he has become the biggest target and problematically is probably a riper target than the Clintons ever were.

Also problematically he has a very thin skin.

We are most likely going to see him actually encourage more fake news because he will react to it.

The people who publish this stuff have various motivations.

One is of course to get "clicks" which lead to revenue.

When the target of the fake news denounces you, people go to your site to see what was published.

So responding to this stuff is sort of self defeating.

Ignoring it has some risks also.  The American public, or at least a significant portion of it, is incredibly gullible.

People say things to me that are demonstrably false and have been debunked many times, but they read it on the web and just believe it.

Of course Trump is actually one of those people.  He sees the fake news published about him, but believes the worst stories about everyone else, or at least plays along.

Whether he is deceitful or gullible is the unanswered question, but I suspect a little of both.

It going to be a rocky ride followed by a crash and burn folks.

Fasten your seat belts.