Guest Post by
After coming under attack, the alternative media successfully appropriated and reassigned the now ubiquitous term “fake news” to a variety of disingenuous mainstream media outlets. The corporate media is not too happy about this, and is doing what it does best (aside from cheerleading for war). It’s whining about it to its readers.
Nothing more perfectly highlights the mainstream media’s instinctual response to complain than an article published on Christmas Day in The New York Times, which reinvents history by claiming alternative media is to blame for turning “fake news” into an overly expansive and thus meaningless term. Here are a few excerpts:
It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
-----------------------------------------------------
To donate via Stripe, click here.
-----------------------------------------------------
Use promo code ILMF2, and save up to 66% on all MyPillow purchases. (The Burning Platform benefits when you use this promo code.)
WASHINGTON — The C.I.A., the F.B.I. and the White House may all agree that Russia was behind the hacking that interfered with the election. But that was of no import to the website Breitbart News, which dismissed reports on the intelligence assessment as “left-wing fake news.”
Rush Limbaugh has diagnosed a more fundamental problem. “The fake news is the everyday news” in the mainstream media, he said on his radio show recently. “They just make it up.”
Some supporters of President-elect Donald J. Trump have also taken up the call. As reporters were walking out of a Trump rally this month in Orlando, Fla., a man heckled them with shouts of “Fake news!”
Until now, that term had been widely understood to refer to fabricated news accounts that are meant to spread virally online. But conservative cable and radio personalities, top Republicans and even Mr. Trump himself, incredulous about suggestions that fake stories may have helped swing the election, have appropriated the term and turned it against any news they see as hostile to their agenda.
The line highlighted above is a complete fabrication, and is either the result of extreme ignorance or intentional deceit. Either way, The New York Times should be ashamed of itself.
“Fake news was a term specifically about people who purposely fabricated stories for clicks and revenue,” said David Mikkelson, the founder of Snopes, the myth-busting website. “Now it includes bad reporting, slanted journalism and outright propaganda. And I think we’re doing a disservice to lump all those things together.”
As someone who followed the fluid and rapid progression of the “fake news” meme very closely, I can tell you that it didn’t happen the way The New York Times claims. First, let’s discuss what the term “fake news” should mean. I think the Snopes definition above is fine: “people who purposely fabricated stories for clicks and revenue.” If mainstream media had held to this standard following the election, there wouldn’t have been a problem. Nobody in alternative media would’ve cared, but that’s not what happened.
Rather, ensconced in an election-loss driven hysteria, various mainstream media outlets intentionally starting blurring the definition of fake news in order to slander the competition. This really got started with the promotion of a ridiculous list of websites to avoid compiled by a loony professor at Merrimack college. I covered the story barely a week after the election in the post, Zerohedge Included in What NY Magazine Calls ‘Extremely Helpful List of Fake and Misleading News Sites.’ Here’s some of what I observed.
Who cares that some assistant professor made a list of sites she doesn’t like and warns people about them? Why should we pay attention?
We should care because it is being promoted heavily by the mainstream media. For example, look at how a writer at New York Magazine promoted the list (seems kinda “clickbait-y” doesn’t it):
That article ended up being the most popular piece published on New York Magazine’s website that day. I never would’ve highlighted the professor’s ridiculous list if mainstream media wasn’t promoting it, and NY Mag wasn’t the only one. As I also noted:
The Los Angeles Times today published an article titled, Want to Keep Fake News Out of Your Newsfeed? College Professor Creates List of Sites to Avoid, in which it noted:
During the election, many people fell prey to fake news stories on social media — even the president-elect ended up retweeting fake statistics. A professor of communication has created a list of unreliable news sites to help people do better.
Melissa Zimdars, an assistant professor of communication at Merrimack College in Massachusetts, put together a publicly available Google doc cataloging “False, misleading, clickbait-y and satirical ‘news’ sources.” It’s been making the rounds on social media as people seek to cleanse their newsfeeds of misinformation.
In its headline, the Los Angeles Times explicitly promotes this list as a helpful tool to avoid “fake news.” Alternative media, Trump supporters and conservatives didn’t bastardized the term, mainstream media did.
Of course, that was just the beginning. What really enraged everyone, including myself, was when The Washington Post dropped all journalistic standards to promote a “fake news” list created by the unknown, anonymous and obviously clownish organization PropOrNot. You all know what happened next, but if you want to revisit my thoughts on the topic, see:
Liberty Blitzkrieg Included on Washington Post Highlighted Hit List of “Russian Propaganda” Websites
Additional Thoughts on “Fake News,” The Washington Post, and the Absence of Real Journalism
After all that, alternative media rightly appropriated the term, and accusations of “fake news” are now more often directed at billionaire-owned mainstream media than independent media. The response? Corporate media is crying foul and reinventing history by claiming that it was alt media barbarians who twisted the term “fake news” for propaganda purposes, when the exact opposite happened. Monumentally pathetic.
To conclude, I’d like to remind everyone of the following:
And The Washington Post likes to lecture us about fake news.#bitcoin pic.twitter.com/mKR9RtUpnd
— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) December 28, 2016
If you enjoyed this post, and want to contribute to genuine, independent media, consider visiting our Support Page.
In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
For the record, I’d like to say that I enjoy the click bait on TBP, although it takes forever to get to more pictures of blond yoga girl with her ass in the air. I judge websites this way: the better the tits, the truer the news.
Judy Miller and the NYT win the all-time biggest “fake news” story….WMD’s in Iraq that led to a 2 Trillion dollar (and counting) war.
I need brain bleach. I gave Westcoaster thumbs up.
“After coming under attack, the alternative media successfully appropriated and reassigned the now ubiquitous term “fake news” to a variety of disingenuous mainstream media outlets.”
Something that wasn’t hard to do after this election cycle, the MSM just showed themselves up for what they are as clearly as a piercing beacon shining brightly through the night.
And since Trump won, it’s obvious that most of us saw that beacon.
They miss the “good old days” when a few dozen media lights, all of whom graduated from the same Columbia Journalism School, could decide what America would see as the news; when they could promote, suppress, or slant any story and the country would ONLY see that promotion, suppression or slant as the truth.
And they would give, do or steal ANYTHING to get those days back.
“I think the Snopes definition above is fine: “people who purposely fabricated stories for clicks and revenue.” ”
Disagree with you Mike – and very strongly.
Fake News includes all the BS, especially Propaganda from our gov’t and its Agencies.
Media lies and fabrications have been going on ever since there were “journalists” (I use that term loosely). The difference today, is that “professional journalism” is now blatantly showing its liberal communistic bias.
From “Remember the Maine” in the Spanish-American war (actually a powder magazine explosion–not an attack) to walter duranty’s extolling the “virtues” of communism while one of the greatest artificially-engineered (by communists) famines in the Ukraine was taking place, in order to force the “collectivization” of privately-held farms, to walter cronkite outright lying about the American military effectiveness during the 1968 Vietnam “Tet offensive” (in which much enemy life was lost) journalism has always been a “nasty craft”. In cronkite’s case, the North Vietnamese were ready to settle (and capitulate) until cronkite’s lies about the supposed American “defeat” were publicized. Cronkite’s lies gave the North Vietnamese new resolve, as they realized that they had the American “news media” on their side. There has always been a certain sympathy for communism and totalitarianism in the so-called “mainstream media”. All one has to do is to look at the journalists fawning over Cuba’s Fidel Castro and how wonderful life is in that communist “paradise”.
Journalists HATE the internet because it exposes their “profession” for what it really is…with the internet, anyone can be a true journalist. This is why the same “mainstream media” is calling for the “licensing” of journalists–something that would have been unheard of (and treasonous) in previous decades…
Professional journalism is its own worst enemy…
All news is fake news. There is nothing ever presented in any medium which is anything other than opinion. It is all a fiction, fabricated by people who profit from the fabrication. At least when you get your opinion from someone who claims that it is an opinion you are not being misled. MSM is designed simply, and only, to mislead you into believing what they want you to believe.
The fact that the legacy press’s ratings are in the tank and falling like a meteor tells you all you need to know about what Americans think of the value of their product. It’s deeper than just peddling the version the Deep State wants us to believe. They want ‘news’ trivialized and more entertaining than enlightening. Life for the Deep State is easier when the public is complacent and not aroused. I wasted 1/2 hour of my life watching today’s CBS Evening News. Half the newscast was barely scratching the surface on a few news items and the other half was on Debby Reynolds and Carrie Fisher dying. Those interested in such things have plenty of entertainment venues to get that story. But to have it on a program purporting to offer THE news is laughable. It’s drivel and I believe calculated to put us asleep. Try falling asleep on Alex Jones’ broadcasts.
Classic propaganda tactic.Everyone knows all tv news propaganda and fake regurgitated from CIA,NSA,White house to cnbc to tell YOU what to think. Sooooooooo…… accuse everyone ELSE but them of fakery Down the road , fema camp for mind control.If that does not work ,Bill Ayres said many would be eliminated that could not be re educated.Thank God for Trump.Hillary and ilk would be next Hitler.The Obama talking third term already .