Summations Only

I vote for people actually saying what they mean. We're not in Humpty-Dumpty land. Pizzagate is an actual example of "fake news." That the Pope endorsed Donald Trump is another example of "fake news." That an FBI agent investigating Hillary Clinton was part of a murder-suicide is yet another example of "fake news." By labeling mainstream media reporting as comparable to such "fake news" Trump is doing the country a great disservice. The Fourth Estate is an essential part of a democracy. They're responsible for keeping the public informed about what is actually going on, and that is what the mainstream media is doing. Trump may not agree with what they say or how they say it, but he's already established his ignorance on a wide range of subjects. The truth is very unlikely to be what Trump declares it is. He's just doing what he's always done, which is to get his back up and double down on whatever peculiar impulsive claims he made. I don't think so. What's been done is noting that Trump is incorrectly labeling any reporting he doesn't like as "fake news." If Trump were a media outlet, and I guess his Twitter account could be counted as one, then he would be the one engaging in "fake news" big time.--Percy

I think the message we're actually trying to communicate is that you don't seem able to recognize the difference between the likely true and the absurdly unlikely. If you had examples in your Message 192 of actual "fake news" from one of the mainstream media outlets Trump's been attacking then I missed them. Could you present one of them again? Ah, spoken like a true conspiracy theorist.--Percy

Huh? Why would you ask something silly like that? That Wikileaks leaked the Podesta emails is a fact accurately reported by the mainstream media. Pizzagate is hoax news not reported by the mainstream media (until its impact itself became news) that fooled a large number of people.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

I think you must have misread PaulK's email. He did not call you a liar, not even close. He asked, "What lies [of the media] - actual lies mind you not truths you want suppressed as is so often the case with you - do they [the supposed Obama and the anti-Trump people] agree with?"--Percy

This would be incorrect. According to Wikipedia, the Pizzagate news hoax originated with a tweet, spread to the Godlike Productions message board and 4chan, and then was picked up by YourNewsWire and other fake news sites.--Percy

Any examples from the actual mainstream press outlets that Trump says are engaging in fake news? Not the kind of examples Faith provided, which were tweets, news unfavorable to Trump, and random "stuff". There are reputable reliable news outlets out there, the very ones Trump attacks, and this should be recognized. Reddit is, in their own words, "User-generated news links." This isn't who Trump was talking about, and I, for one, do not consider them a reliable mainstream media news source. Again, he called "fake news" the New York Times, CNN, ABC, NBC and CBS in his tweet that the news media is the enemy of the American People. He probably just forgot the Washington post. It should be very easy for anyone, (you, Faith, anyone) to go to their websites and post descriptions and links for "fake news" articles, if they exist.Here, let me help you. Here are links to some articles (not opinion pieces) on the New York Times' front page. Which ones are "fake news":

• Trump Details Plans to Deport Millions of Immigrants
  
• 3 Generals Bound by Iraq Will Guide Trump on Security
  
• Questions, Boos and a Bottle of Tums at G.O.P. Town Halls
  
• From Trump the Nationalist, a Trail of Global Trademarks
  
• My Visit to the ISIS Front Line
  
• Tobacco Farmers Say They Were Swindled by A.T.F. Sales
  
• U.S. May Need More Troops in Syria, General Says
  
• Former Hong Kong Leader Imprisoned for Misconduct
  
• North Korea Diplomat Sought in Death of Kim Jong-nam
  
• Netanyahu Warmly Received by Australia’s Leader
  
• Judge Blocks Medicaid Cuts to Planned Parenthood in Texas

And where do you find these facts yourself? News outlets, may I guess?--PercyEdited by Percy, : Minor correction.

I think "demonstrably false" is a fine definition of "fake news" - that's just a shorter version of Wikipedia's "hoax news, propaganda and disinformation."Do you have any examples of "fake news" from the mainstream media? By mainstream media is not meant any media anywhere, but actual *mainstream* media like the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, ABC, etc., and not a tweet , and not a comment in some outlet somewhere about an article somewhere else.Mistakes that have been retracted, such as the MLK bust, do not count as "fake news," right? To qualify as "fake news" it has to be something a media outlet stands behind and defends as accurate, as for one example the media did with its news stories about Trump's claims about the size of his inauguration crowds. It can't be something retracted.And "fake news" is definitely not just any news that fails to say positive ("incredibly fabulous") things about Trump, right?

Faith pretty much agrees with me, see Message 236. She deemed "fake news" to be news that is "demonstrably false." I think you're looking for some other definition. I *do* want to understand what people mean, but that doesn't include accepting that their words mean precisely what they mean them to mean. Language *is* malleable, but not day-to-day or post-to-post. Right now "fake news" has a particular meaning, let's use it despite any attempts by someone living on Pennsylvania Avenue to sow confusion. Huh? Of course it happens. In particular it happened over and over and over again during the election. What do you think Pizzagate and murder-suicide-FBI-agent-investigating-Hillary-Clinton-gate were? They were "fake news," just not in the mainstream media. If that's what you meant, that it never happens in the mainstream media, then though I disagree with the characterization of "never" I would agree that it is far more rare in the mainstream media than in the heaps of Internet-based media outlets that have sprouted like weeds. Again, that's not the definition of "fake news." That's something that happens, but deeming misinterpreted opinion pieces as "fake news" would be incorrect. You must be thinking of when cynicism was cool. An apparently large portion of Americans have difficultly telling fact from fiction, in effect have a faulty bullshit meter. No, that wouldn't be entirely accurate. While he is easily bothered by reporting unfavorable to him, he was upset because the mainstream media disagreed that his inauguration was the biggest ever, during his first press conference called CNN "fake news" because they reported on the existence of the dossier of his Russian involvement, and he was very upset at the news media during his last press conference because they reported on investigations into his Russian ties. All these things were true and reported accurately, yet to Trump they are "fake news." If you think you've found "spinning facts" and opinions that shouldn't be part of any legitimate news piece in the mainstream media then sure, provide examples. At some point you do have to stop merely claimging "They did this and they did that" and start providing some evidence for what you're talking about. You're starting to sound nutty. If it weren't for the news media I wouldn't know about, or have any way of knowing about, Trump's plans for changing immigration enforcement, the DeVos/Sessions disagreement about transgender bathroom rules in schools, pipeline protesters in North Dakata approaching a deadline for vacating, and Bao Bao the panda returning to China to breed. Sounds fascinating, but how does this work in practice to go through to their sources? For example, concerning the story about the DeVos/Sessions disagreement, what does going to the source entail?--Percy

Okay, fine, retractions don't count. The story about transgender teens committing suicide originated as a tweet. The voting hacking conspiracy piece was New York Magazine (that's neither the New York Times nor the New Yorker, so not mainstream media). The foreclosure story was Politico. The DeVos story seems accurate and not "fake news." The Daily Beast (not mainstream media) mistook a Reuters parody for reality. The travel ban story was Fox News. The Daily Beast is mainstream media now? Who knew? So far you have identified no broadly disseminated "fake news" that spread through the mainstream press. The MLK bust story that was quickly retracted was a single outlet for a very short time, so you can't count that. No one's brought to our attention any other "demonstrably false" story that spread widely through the mainstream media.--Percy

You're asking people to watch a 29 minute video? Can't you at least tell people where to begin watching, what the press said, and what was actually true?Also, aren't the first reports of a chaotic scene generally inaccurate? Isn't this just a "so what"?--Percy

No. What was it about it that you found fake? All you did in your Message 192 was cut-n-paste without comment, so who could know why you thought it fake.--Percy

Yes, I've said this several times, that Trump is using the term incorrectly. When Trump says "fake news" he means news that isn't favorable to him, like news about his Russian ties or his wall. Sometimes by "fake news" he means news that was leaked, like his phone conversations with foreign heads of state. He definitely doesn't mean "demonstrably false" news (Faith's definition of "fake news"), or if he does then he's demonstrably wrong. I think it's fine to talk about what Trump is referring to when he says "fake news," as long as it is well understood that he's using the term incorrectly. For example, if we were to discuss Trump's phone call to the prime minister of Australia, reports of which Trump labels "fake news," it must be understood that it isn't "fake news" at all, and that the media that reported it was not concocting "fake news" but was reporting news truly and accurately. A link or two to examples? If it's bullshit then why did the Ninth Circuit rule that the order was targeting Muslims? Courts know better than to blindly accept an order's overtly stated purpose. There were a couple stories. When Trump held his first press conference back in January and called CNN "fake news" I believe there was just the one report (this one) that both Trump and Obama had been briefed on the existence of a dossier. Later, in February there was a second report (this one) that investigators had corroborated some of the information in the dossier.If you don't read the mainstream press, not even Fox News, there seems no way to know what reports Trump is talking about when he accuses them of "fake news." Seems like quite a handicap. You were much more accurate when you said that the executive order didn't mention Muslims, because it definitely had the result of banning Muslims. There were actual real Muslims stuck at airports (a hundred or two) and many more stuck in limbo at various stages of being in transit. Those sources cover hardly any news at all. Where do you go to find out about, say, ISIS in Mosul or the progress of Brexit or whether that transgender teen plans to continue his appeal to the Supreme Court? Do you really have non-news-media links to accurate information about these things - and most news, really. Except that it isn't drivel. Do you even know what they were disagreeing about? In any case, it's extremely relevant. It truly helps to understand what side of today's executive order each is on.--Percy

I agree that headlines are over-sensationalized, but some several news outlets were very consistent in rendering his remarks into a headline. Here's a broader sample:

• USA Today: Pope denounces Catholics who lead a 'double life'
  
• New York Post: Pope: It’s better to be an atheist than
  
• Russia Today: ‘Better to be an atheist’: Pope Francis takes aim at ‘hypocritical Catholics’
  
• Washington Post: Pope Francis suggests it’s better to be an atheist than a hypocritical Catholic
  
• Reuters: Pope suggests 'better to be atheist than hypocritical Catholic'

Interestingly, the New York Times, Fox, ABC, CBS and NBC were completely silent about this, at least on their front page.--Percy

Further support for what you say comes from Wikipedia:

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In that interview, Horowitz made numerous assertions about Sweden, which have been deemed false or unsubstantiated by the Swedish authorities, criminologists and a wide range of news organizations and fact-checkers.
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Two policemen who featured in Horowitz's documentary said that Horowitz edited answers and questions to misrepresent the policemen. Two camermen involved in the project later substantiated that the policemen were correct and that the footage had been unethically edited to misrepresent the subjects. The cameramen also reviewed the raw films to confirm it. Horowitz denies it, but refused to show the raw material.

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From Swedish police featured in Fox News segment: Filmmaker is a madman

quote:

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"I don’t understand why we are a part of the segment. The interview was about something completely different to what Fox News and Horowitz were talking about", says Anders Granzon..."It was supposed to be about crime in high risk areas. Areas with high crime rates. There wasn’t any focus on migration or immigration...We don’t stand behind it. It shocked us. He has edited the answers. We were answering completely different questions in the interview. This is bad journalism."

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There are a couple other articles referenced by Wikipedia:

• US film on Swedish crime unethically edited, say cameramen
  
• He filmed the police interview that Trump saw: The material was not edited ethically

--Percy

The article, written back in June, has this about 40% of the way down predicting what Trump might be like as president:

quote:

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In sum, Donald Trump’s basic personality traits suggest a presidency that could be highly combustible. One possible yield is an energetic, activist president who has a less than cordial relationship with the truth. He could be a daring and ruthlessly aggressive decision maker who desperately desires to create the strongest, tallest, shiniest, and most awesome resultand who never thinks twice about the collateral damage he will leave behind. Tough. Bellicose. Threatening. Explosive.

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Bullseye.--Percy