Fake News?

Just what is "Fake News"? Let me take a ride down memory lane. Some sixty or seventy years ago in New York one had dozens of newspapers. Ride a subway and everyone's face was in a newspaper, oftentimes a different one. They came in dozens of languages. There was the Irish Echo, the Daily Worker, the Post, News, Times, Herald Tribune, Journal American, Telegram and the list goes on. Each and every one told a different story, often about the same news item. Each reflected a political viewpoint, and the spin their placed on stories and intensified the belief set of their readers.

Was this Fake News? Was there a real true story out there? The NY Times was famous for its support of the Soviet regime and they actually presented distorted, albeit favorable, tales of the success of Stalin. It was only later one found out his brutal tactics.

So again, was this Fake News.

In the Internet world one can access hundreds of different sites. In a single day I can read the Guardian, Breitbart, the NY Times, the WSJ, the Washington Post, the Telegraph, the Jerusalem Post, China Daily, RT and Sputnik, Le Monde, and dozens more. Each tells their audience what they feel they want to tell. Each has its own bent on Fake News. Would I ever use Facebook or Twitter, never! Why not go to the source, why waste any time on someone collecting the "real" new for me and allowing their point of view to be expressed.

News is propaganda in today's world, and frankly it has always been so. Propaganda is the telling of a story to reflect the interests and intents of the story teller. The NY Times hates Trump, so every above the fold story is anti Trump, true or not. Are they worth reading, sometimes, but with a grain of salt. Then Breitbart tells tales that are often exaggerated but can be independently verified. Do they have a propagandist's bent as well. It seems obvious that they do. Now China Daily gives us a view, albeit also a propagandist's one, of China. RT and Sputnik are surprisingly propagandists, but they lack the heavy handed approach of the old Pravda.

Thus if one seeks to understand what is happening one examines as many sources as possible and then make a decision. Unfortunately the existence of the social media platforms are superb tools for the propagandists, lazy people rely upon what is fed to them. It is akin to network television. 

So again I would ask; what is Fake News? Simply it is any single source of information wherein the user relies solely upon the opinion of the aggregator of gatekeeper. Thus a Facebook or Google. If one wants to avoid Fake News, then one must read all the Fake News first hand and then make up their own minds. In reality, all new has an element of the "Fake". Thus caveat emptor.