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The Reason For "Fake" News

Moderate Right

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First of all, I hate it when Trump refers to it as "Fake News". It is not the correct terminology. For the most part the news isn't literally fake, it is just extremely biased to the left and it was extremely biased before Trump ever came into the picture. Of course it has gotten much worse since Trump became president. He should refer to it as "Biased News" because most all media are biased to the left and have a left leaning agenda and therefore carefully pick out the stories they want to report in order to achieve and fulfill their left leaning agenda. Anyway, I digress. This thread is actually about the reason for "Fake News" or "Biased News".

I got to thinking that in the past newsprint media was a big part of the news media and ever since the internet and, in particular, social media have come into the picture newsprint media have been having a harder and harder time making a profit, with several even going belly up. We've also had an explosion in the number of media overall, cutting the size of the pie slices down for everyone. It is my opinion that due to these things, the media have been trying to make up their lost revenue by reporting more and more sensationalist headlines and hyping up everything they can possibly hype up to the hilt. I'm not talking about just politics and Trump. I'm talking about a number of things, such as hyping up shootings of blacks by whites when there are actually more shootings of whites by blacks. And of course we have the MeToo movement. Anything and everything they can hype up to get a bigger slice of the media pie they do. To them it is either create sensationalist story after story after story or lose marketshare or even worse. Of course this is what their mission has always been but my argument is that it is much more pronounced now due to these factors.

Please don't make this a tit for tat back and forth about Trump. I'm interested in member's opinions about the subject in general.
 
For me it’s a generational thing; I grew up with newspapers. My first few jobs were serving papers in a large city. I was opining about telephone books last week and another poster expressed wonder that anyone would get/read a newspaper. I think the papers will eventually pass into history as younger generations get their news from different sources.

As has been noted by many posters, a consumer of news must show some initiative as to where and what sources are used to inform themselves.

Same as a land-line telephone. If we gave that up, then we would have to give out the mobile number. I am loathe to surrender either my e-mail address or call number. We recently got new LL handsets and there was a sweet feature; it will allow us to block 250 numbers. Once blocked, if they call again the phone only rings once and ID’s the call as “blocked.”
 
First of all, I hate it when Trump refers to it as "Fake News". It is not the correct terminology. For the most part the news isn't literally fake, it is just extremely biased to the left and it was extremely biased before Trump ever came into the picture. Of course it has gotten much worse since Trump became president. He should refer to it as "Biased News" because most all media are biased to the left and have a left leaning agenda and therefore carefully pick out the stories they want to report in order to achieve and fulfill their left leaning agenda. Anyway, I digress. This thread is actually about the reason for "Fake News" or "Biased News".

I got to thinking that in the past newsprint media was a big part of the news media and ever since the internet and, in particular, social media have come into the picture newsprint media have been having a harder and harder time making a profit, with several even going belly up. We've also had an explosion in the number of media overall, cutting the size of the pie slices down for everyone. It is my opinion that due to these things, the media have been trying to make up their lost revenue by reporting more and more sensationalist headlines and hyping up everything they can possibly hype up to the hilt. I'm not talking about just politics and Trump. I'm talking about a number of things, such as hyping up shootings of blacks by whites when there are actually more shootings of whites by blacks. And of course we have the MeToo movement. Anything and everything they can hype up to get a bigger slice of the media pie they do. To them it is either create sensationalist story after story after story or lose marketshare or even worse. Of course this is what their mission has always been but my argument is that it is much more pronounced now due to these factors.

Please don't make this a tit for tat back and forth about Trump. I'm interested in member's opinions about the subject in general.

It is called propaganda. The difference is the right wing either lacks the awareness or intelligence to know their "fair and balanced* sources are as bad as the left.
 
The first issue, which is not really an issue anyway, is media is for profit. This is not the first time in US History that someone in politics suggests media is being slanted in a manner to be persistently attacking them or their party or something, nor is it the first time that ownership of the media utilizes that platform to attack opposition. Since we all are subject to our social and political ideologies to some degree anyway it makes perfect sense to offer that their will always be biased news to some degree as well. What news stories are selected to mention, basic delivery of that news to an audience, and even commentary about those stories ends up with the same filters.

The other issue is evolution of how information is exchanged. There is no doubt that exchange of news and commentary over the internet has changed how people obtain and respond to stories and issues of importance to them. This is perhaps amplified by the various social evolutions we see and how quickly they make their way through the public to respond one way or another.

For a given political ideology that probably means a constant barrage of attacks across the board. Bush 43 faced them, so did Obama, and now it is Trump's turn.

The *difference* is Trump demanded a fight with the media, and every so often claims to be bruised up by it. We can expect it to get a little worse the further we go depending upon the ideology of the next crop of US leaders.
 
It is called propaganda. The difference is the right wing either lacks the awareness or intelligence to know their "fair and balanced* sources are as bad as the left.
Eason Jordan, Bernard Shaw, Peter Arnett shilling for Saddam and Castro should have finished CNN.
Fox makes an effort to be fair and balanced but is still has a left leaning bias though to the right of the rest.

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk
 
Eason Jordan, Bernard Shaw, Peter Arnett shilling for Saddam and Castro should have finished CNN.
Fox makes an effort to be fair and balanced but is still has a left leaning bias though to the right of the rest.

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

Lol. That was dumb. I would love to see some evidence of the left wing Fox bias.
 
First of all, I hate it when Trump refers to it as "Fake News". It is not the correct terminology.

Agreed. Not giving credit is not giving credit. It's Lugenpresse.

A brief history of 'Lügenpresse,' the Nazi-era predecessor to Trump's 'Fake News'

Please don't make this a tit for tat back and forth about Trump. I'm interested in member's opinions about the subject in general.

Clearly it's a form of propaganda. Hitler used it very effectively, and it's being used very effectively today.
 
First of all, I hate it when Trump refers to it as "Fake News". It is not the correct terminology. For the most part the news isn't literally fake, it is just extremely biased to the left and it was extremely biased before Trump ever came into the picture. Of course it has gotten much worse since Trump became president. He should refer to it as "Biased News" because most all media are biased to the left and have a left leaning agenda and therefore carefully pick out the stories they want to report in order to achieve and fulfill their left leaning agenda. Anyway, I digress. This thread is actually about the reason for "Fake News" or "Biased News".

I got to thinking that in the past newsprint media was a big part of the news media and ever since the internet and, in particular, social media have come into the picture newsprint media have been having a harder and harder time making a profit, with several even going belly up. We've also had an explosion in the number of media overall, cutting the size of the pie slices down for everyone. It is my opinion that due to these things, the media have been trying to make up their lost revenue by reporting more and more sensationalist headlines and hyping up everything they can possibly hype up to the hilt. I'm not talking about just politics and Trump. I'm talking about a number of things, such as hyping up shootings of blacks by whites when there are actually more shootings of whites by blacks. And of course we have the MeToo movement. Anything and everything they can hype up to get a bigger slice of the media pie they do. To them it is either create sensationalist story after story after story or lose marketshare or even worse. Of course this is what their mission has always been but my argument is that it is much more pronounced now due to these factors.

Please don't make this a tit for tat back and forth about Trump. I'm interested in member's opinions about the subject in general.

I agree that much is to do with sensationalism to boost the bottom line and also about calling out the news' bias. But, much is actually fake. We've seen several whoppers of fake news, like Brian Ross. News anchors without journalistic integrity are now nothing more than Trump-bashing mouthpieces for the Democrats and Socialists.
Cable news is now primarily faux crisis-driven drivel, 24/7.
 
Lol. That was dumb. I would love to see some evidence of the left wing Fox bias.

It just depends how far out to the right you are. For some, FOX is left wing propaganda.
 
I agree that much is to do with sensationalism to boost the bottom line and also about calling out the news' bias. But, much is actually fake. We've seen several whoppers of fake news, like Brian Ross. News anchors without journalistic integrity are now nothing more than Trump-bashing mouthpieces for the Democrats and Socialists.
Cable news is now primarily faux crisis-driven drivel, 24/7.

Thank you for highlighting how well the Nazi strategy of Lugenpresse works. The perfect advertisement for it's effectiveness directly under the post I talked about it. Cool. :)
 
For me it’s a generational thing; I grew up with newspapers. My first few jobs were serving papers in a large city. I was opining about telephone books last week and another poster expressed wonder that anyone would get/read a newspaper. I think the papers will eventually pass into history as younger generations get their news from different sources.

As has been noted by many posters, a consumer of news must show some initiative as to where and what sources are used to inform themselves.

Same as a land-line telephone. If we gave that up, then we would have to give out the mobile number. I am loathe to surrender either my e-mail address or call number. We recently got new LL handsets and there was a sweet feature; it will allow us to block 250 numbers. Once blocked, if they call again the phone only rings once and ID’s the call as “blocked.”

The term "Fake news" should be taken out back and strangled, never to be heard again. Ironically, President Stable Genius has credited himself with coining the phrase "fake news", except - SURPRISE - he didn't create the term. Trump claiming himself the term creator is itself fake news.

Fewer and fewer people read anymore, as you pointed out, Rexedgar. I too grew up with newspapers and magazines and books. My first job was carrying newspapers at zero dark thirty every morning. My first job out of college was working for a big city newspaper.

There was a smidgen of excitement in working for the paper even as a paperboy. You knew the big stories and all the sports scores before most people had their morning coffee. You helped bring the world to your community. You helped give your community a sense of place. The job was a very small part but a critical part.

I loved the paper. The building. Watching the presses run. The press room. The full tilt toward madness as deadline approached. The newspaper people, characters each and every one. I once knew an advertising guy at the newspaper who could determine the true state of the economy and was fairly accurate predicting the short term economic future by averaging daily column inches of classified adds over a few weeks.

It is not for a lack of love that so many newspaper people have left.

Social media isn't good nor bad. It's social media. It is what it is and it has changed our world. In my opinion social media has helped those who are prone to do so to become intellectually lazy. With a big more effort many of them could learn to vary their news sources. Digital news sources can be excellent but the truly informative sites require reading in depth for background and additional facts. Far too many people, however, depend on short videos and no more than 2 paragraphs from their own narrow choice of digital sites. That is one major reason Trump has done so well with his core demographic. He doesn't read, they don't read. He gets most of his "news" from Fox and alt right radio. Trump's base does the same.

Trump is not, has never been accused of, will not ever become, a critical thinker. Does he have the ability? I don't know. I suppose he might, though we have never actually witnessed a reason to believe him capable. Not all but many Trump fans also prefer not to use deductive reasoning. Thus they communicate comfortably with each other, especially through social media.

Trump's "fake news" is often an invitation to Trump fans to simply take Trump's word for it. When Trump declares "fake news" to many it means don't bother doing the grunt work. "Don't spend your time reading and comparing to find and/or verify what you've been told, depend on me to know the truth for you. And if you want a bit of background watch Fox or look at Breitbart or World News Daily." Ironically those are the same sources Trump depends on to get his "facts". So it all runs full circle. Trump is the truth, Trump knows the truth. If you want to verify Trump's truth go Fox or WNS or Rush Limbaugh and compare them to what Trump says. Whoa! Holy smokes! Praise the lord! Trump tells the truth because Trump's trusted sources verify and validate Trump.

To reinforce it, to set the hook, to complete the circle of deceit Trump reassures his fans that any negative information that emanates outside the approved circle is then "fake news" and cannot be believed. "Fake news" has been repeated enough to have become a cult mantra. Coming from Trump, and now repeated by Trump followers "fake news" excuses any and all who accept the the term. They are excused for ferreting out the truth. They are excused from reading in depth from a variety of sources. They no longer need to feel guilty for not wanting to read and/or discovering truth for themselves.

If Trump and his approved "news" sources can provide Trump fans with the distilled "truth" why waste time doing it on their own?
 
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Thank you for highlighting how well the Nazi strategy of Lugenpresse works. The perfect advertisement for it's effectiveness directly under the post I talked about it. Cool. :)

Oh, please. All the Leftist MSM does all day long is use Goebbells' tactics. So not cool.
 
I agree that much is to do with sensationalism to boost the bottom line and also about calling out the news' bias. But, much is actually fake. We've seen several whoppers of fake news, like Brian Ross. News anchors without journalistic integrity are now nothing more than Trump-bashing mouthpieces for the Democrats and Socialists.
Cable news is now primarily faux crisis-driven drivel, 24/7.


"If it bleeds, it leads" is still true today. Broadcast news is going to sensationalize the worst news, the bloodiest, the most abhorrent because the audience loves it. Viewers want it that way! That's fact. American television viewers do not want straight news. They don't. I don't care what Americans say, the truth is they do NOT want straight news. Americans want pretty and handsome talking heads - now their called "news personalities" or "talent" telling the public horrible, sensationalized "news".

The public wants to be entertained while they are being informed. Give the public the choice between receiving straight, informative news as delivered accurately as possible or chatty, sensationalized "news" that includes emphasized aspects which depict blood, sex, suspense, shame and horror delivered by pretty and handsome news personalities and the viewing public will take the pretty and handsome, chatty, sensationalized gloss every time.
 
Oh, please. All the Leftist MSM does all day long is use Goebbells' tactics. So not cool.

Not so fast. Do you mean social media and broadcast media or all you including all media when you say MSM? I'm not certain a blanket accusation can be equally applied to all media.

As for Goebbels, I'd venture to guess that his evil genius is perhaps the foundation of modern propaganda, but today's manipulation of the masses via the press far exceeds anything Goebbels dreamed of.

There isn't a great deal of difference right or left as to how information is used to influence the public.
 
"If it bleeds, it leads" is still true today. Broadcast news is going to sensationalize the worst news, the bloodiest, the most abhorrent because the audience loves it. Viewers want it that way! That's fact. American television viewers do not want straight news. They don't. I don't care what Americans say, the truth is they do NOT want straight news. Americans want pretty and handsome talking heads - now their called "news personalities" or "talent" telling the public horrible, sensationalized "news".

The public wants to be entertained while they are being informed. Give the public the choice between receiving straight, informative news as delivered accurately as possible or chatty, sensationalized "news" that includes emphasized aspects which depict blood, sex, suspense, shame and horror delivered by pretty and handsome news personalities and the viewing public will take the pretty and handsome, chatty, sensationalized gloss every time.

Seems like hate leads today. Titillates, even. It's like millions of Americans have become addicted to rage.
 
Not so fast. Do you mean social media and broadcast media or all you including all media when you say MSM? I'm not certain a blanket accusation can be equally applied to all media.

As for Goebbels, I'd venture to guess that his evil genius is perhaps the foundation of modern propaganda, but today's manipulation of the masses via the press far exceeds anything Goebbels dreamed of.

There isn't a great deal of difference right or left as to how information is used to influence the public.

I'm referring to leftist media, blogs, news sites. Remember when Brian Ross reported that Flynn would flip on and implicate Trump in crimes? The stock market took a hit! That's effective Goebbelling.
 
It is called propaganda. The difference is the right wing either lacks the awareness or intelligence to know their "fair and balanced* sources are as bad as the left.

I would argue that the left is just as bad. They often listen to the MSM and claim that it is not biased news at all. Both sides think their news isn't biased. It's the polarized society we live in where people with already formed opinions listen to the news which supports their lean. Those in the middle have to listen to the news they do hear and read and make an intelligent decision after weeding the garden and there are a lot of weeds that grow in the garden. But, this thread was actually about ever increasing technology causing more and more biased news.
 
The first issue, which is not really an issue anyway, is media is for profit. This is not the first time in US History that someone in politics suggests media is being slanted in a manner to be persistently attacking them or their party or something, nor is it the first time that ownership of the media utilizes that platform to attack opposition. Since we all are subject to our social and political ideologies to some degree anyway it makes perfect sense to offer that their will always be biased news to some degree as well. What news stories are selected to mention, basic delivery of that news to an audience, and even commentary about those stories ends up with the same filters.

The other issue is evolution of how information is exchanged. There is no doubt that exchange of news and commentary over the internet has changed how people obtain and respond to stories and issues of importance to them. This is perhaps amplified by the various social evolutions we see and how quickly they make their way through the public to respond one way or another.

For a given political ideology that probably means a constant barrage of attacks across the board. Bush 43 faced them, so did Obama, and now it is Trump's turn.

The *difference* is Trump demanded a fight with the media, and every so often claims to be bruised up by it. We can expect it to get a little worse the further we go depending upon the ideology of the next crop of US leaders.

I would add that the media were attacking Trump even before the election and that he counter punched them and it has been a boxing match ever since. Many act like Trump started it, so tough sh!t on Trump if he gets bruised by it. The media are partly responsible themselves. Even Fox News was out to get Trump during the primaries.
 
Eason Jordan, Bernard Shaw, Peter Arnett shilling for Saddam and Castro should have finished CNN.
Fox makes an effort to be fair and balanced but is still has a left leaning bias though to the right of the rest.

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

I got lost in there somewhere. I think Fox at one time tried to be fair and balanced, even though they shilled for the right. Since Trump became president Fox lost any of the little credibility they had. I find it interesting though that they have been attacking Trump quite a bit recently and now I wonder the conundrum that has put the left in regarding how they feel about Fox. Do they still believe it is fake news or not?
 
As has been noted by many posters, a consumer of news must show some initiative as to where and what sources are used to inform themselves.
This ^^. With so much disinformation being passed off as “news” it is essential to cross check information with multiple known reliable sources from as many perspectives as possible. Nowadays, accepting information as fact from only one source, when more are available, is foolish IMO.

Lol. That was dumb. I would love to see some evidence of the left wing Fox bias.
I had to read that post twice to be sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing.
 
Lol. That was dumb. I would love to see some evidence of the left wing Fox bias.

Actually, if you dissect Fox News, you will see some very left tilting things. Shepard Smith is very lefty and there are others as well, not to mention lefty contributors. And, even the righties have been attacking Trump lately. Fox News is not all Hannity, Ingrahm, and Carlson as the left would have you believe. Still, Fox is pretty much the bottom of the barrel, quality wise.
 
Seems like hate leads today. Titillates, even. It's like millions of Americans have become addicted to rage.

Yep. I made a poll thread on here once a long time ago asking if people caused politicians to go to the extremes or if politicians caused people to go to the extremes. It was kind of interesting and voters indicated that the question was very hard if you really think about it. I think the poll results were in the mid range. But, we have degenerated into a society where both voters and politicians are staking out and defending their corners. We are now a winner take all society where if someone or party wins an election 50.5% to 49.5% then the winning side takes it as a mandate and crams their values down everyone's throat until the next 50.5% to 49.5% election.
 
Fox makes an effort to be fair and balanced but is still has a left leaning bias though to the right of the rest.

"lol wut?"




There's nothing else to say.
 
This ^^. With so much disinformation being passed off as “news” it is essential to cross check information with multiple known reliable sources from as many perspectives as possible. Nowadays, accepting information as fact from only one source, when more are available, is foolish IMO.

The trouble is society itself is so polarized, people don't need to do this as they only listen to the news which supports their leanings, whether it is accurate, fake, or whatever. I agree with your post though. Unfortunately, it's not the reality for about 67% who are to both extremes. Fortunately, it is Independents and moderates who decide many elections but we are only 1/3 of the total picture. Everyone else should just be banned from voting unless they can pass a test as to how they receive and interpret the news. Unfortunately, that is my own little fantasy world.
 
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