Jophiel wrote:
Of what conservatives call it? Of course not. Conservatives make up all sorts of false definitions to fit their agenda over reality. Nothing I can do about that.
But news organizations continuing to do exactly what people are labeling as Fake News sure does help substantiate those claims.
Quote:
Of what fake news actually is?
There's two forms of fake news Joph:
One is actual BS sites intentionally creating false stories in the hopes that they get picked up on social media, go viral, etc, and thus influence people There's plenty of that on the internet, and it comes in all shapes, sizes, and political orientations.
The other form is legitimate news organizations using clever wordplay, selection bias, and sometimes just outright poor sourcing to write stories that create a false perception in the minds of their audience. They often skirt the edge of outright lying or writing things that are provably false, but just the edge. The examples given above illustrate this. In each case, the facts of the story were technically true, but the choice to put emphasis on one aspect of a story versus another influences the audiences perception of the events themselves. So by focusing on the fact of the Jones Act not being waived quickly, we're led to believe that insufficient emergency supplies were arriving in Puerto Rico, when in fact there was no lack of capacity nor delivery of those supplies to the island itself. By focusing on quotes from people talking about how difficult it is to get supplies, the perception that it's the result of some kind of delay in shipping is reinforced, when in actual fact, the issue was with distribution on the island itself. The entire line of reporting is about misleading the reader into thinking that the problem was with shipping of goods to the island.
One might think that this is merely sensationalism to sell papers and whatnot, but if that was the point, why not focus on the real problem with relief supply distribution? Because that's not directly in Trump's hands, and can't be tied in (even weakly) to waiting a few days to waive the Jone's Act. By writing about one, and then including facts about the other, the journalist can tie two unrelated "true facts" together to create a false perception.
That's what we're talking about when we call these media outlets "fake news". You may not like the label. I'm sure you don't. But that's what people are increasingly becoming annoyed with. And if it was just occasionally, or even if it were equally aimed, it would be one thing. But we just saw 8 years of the very same journalists falling over themselves to excuse, downplay, and dismiss any possible negative or questionable action or statement that the Obama administration made. The reversal is so jarring that even folks who are not particularly conservative leaning can see it pretty plainly.