Summations Only

That isn't what I thought "fake news" was...I thought it was all the spinned up articles that are passing off opinion pieces as facts that, when you dig into the sources and find the real story, end up being so far off-base that there's no way that the original claim could even be true.I'll have to keep an eye out and post a link for you when I find a good example of what I'm talking about.The hoaxes are just pure lies, but those aren't coming from the mainstream liberal media. Their fake news isn't pure lies, it's just spun so far that it looses touch.But I could be completely wrong, I haven't been paying that much attention. Is the charge of "fake news" really claiming that the mainstream media is posting hoaxes?

So is this thread about the Wikipedia definition of fake news or the Trump definition of fake news? Are you talking about Pissgate?And are we only to be bothered by a news story if the author says anything that is blatantly false or fake? What if a technically true statement is spun into a false narrative that the public passes on as fact?Is there any responsibility on the news agency to present their stories in a way that doesn't spark false narratives? Or is that totally cool as long as the explicit statements aren't technically blatantly false or fake?Sorry for the all-question response, but I'm not sure where I stand on this one yet.

I see. I vote for discussing what people actually mean. I'll pass. I don't think that's what people who are bitching about fake news are talking about.I think you've got a strawman there.

When dealing with newly coined and ambiguous terms you may have to set the dictionary down and ask people what they mean. Those are all from the Right; we all know they blatantly lie.The Left, though, doesn't lie blatantly. They spin and they opine as facts.It's totally different, but the end result is similiar: news stories that don't tell the truth.Now, deep down, there may be a nugget of truth buried in there, but that's not what people end up talking about. They talk about the story, and the story sometimes isn't true. I agree that the phrase is over-used and played-out and essentially meaningless now, but I'm not sure how great that disservice is. Our mainstream media is shitty and not worth my time.I mean, often I'll see a story on something I read on Reddit yesterday. Or they're fucking reading tweets from the public to me on TV, WTF!?Other than that it's just a bunch of bullshit spin and opinions. I disagree. The media spends their time trying to tell the people what their opinions should be. Journalism is dead to the mainstream.Too, with the internet, I don't need someone to present facts to me; I can go find them myself. Oh, well that's just a red herring.

Here's an anecdotal example of one in particular that I remember because I dug into it and was completely disappointed. I'm going from memory here and I don't have a link, take it for what's it's worth and don't bother with bothering me:One of my liberal friends shared a news article with me outraged at the problem of rape culture in our society and how this was a perfect example of it.The story was: Some guy got charged with raping two women and did not spend one day in prison.Wow that's strange, I thought, and I wondered what happened so I dug into it. When I finally got to the particulars of the case, it turned out that the prosecution dropped the charges due to a lack of evidence.The way the article was written, the guy had surely raped those girls, no doubt, and this was just our rape culture shining through. No mention of the lack of evidence and the prosecution not pursuing it. Nope, this guy got off scott free because our society loves rape Now, the facts of the matter weren't technically false. The guy did get that charge. And he did not spend a night in prison. Jail, sure, but prison no.But the news story, itself (i.e. what was being "sold"), was so far from the truth I can't call it anything but fake. That people are getting outraged by this stuff, and believing the hype, is outrageous in itself.

I haven't started looking yet, but I'll keep an eye out.But first, what are we talking about? If you're only accepting mainstream news sources that say blatant falsehoods and then refuse to correct them, then I'm not gonna play. That's not what I consider fake news.Again, I could be completely wrong about what fake news is, I dunno. But if it's that, then I don't care - that never happens.I would think that fake news would be the stories that news agency publish that aren't actually news, but are just opinions, that the public consumes as if it was news.Like I said, the news today is just telling the public what their opinions should be. There's very little actual journalism.The bullshit sites that post blatant lies are hoaxes, in my opinion, and aren't even news enough to be fake news. People falling for hoaxes and thinking it is legitimate news is dumbasses getting trolled, in my mind. Sorry, I meant seeing something on a mainstream news program on TV* that I saw posted to Reddit the day before. I didn't mean to imply that I thought Reddit was a mainstream media news source. Okay, so he's not talking about the hoax sites like 'PatriotTribune.com', or whatever I just made that up, that post utter nonsense.I think he's leaning more towards what I'm talking about: spinning facts and writing opinions and passing them off as legitimate journalism.Now, would you like me to provide examples of that? Or are you just going to disqualify it as not being a blatant lie that isn't rescinded?Do you honestly think that the state of journalism today is something that you stand behind and defend? Don't you agree that mainstream news is complete bullshit? Before I put time and effort into it I'd like to know for sure what we're calling "fake news"? Are you expecting the wiki or the Trump definition? None of those look fake to me. If we're talking about court cases or laws, I go to the source. And if it's news sites, I go through their sources, and their sources sources, until I get to the bottom.-*so I don't have TV at home, but at the gym they have TVs running various news programs that I see everyday. The shit that news agencies are putting on TV is pathetic and insulting. From both sides, it's pure unadulterated spun bullshit opinions faking as being news that are completely partisan and hardly have any truth to them.Okay, maybe that was a bit of hyperbole.

That's cool, I can use whatever definition. Right on, just don't expect me to provide wiki-defined examples of fake news to evidence Trump-defined claims of fake news. When Trump called the New York Times, CNN, ABC, NBC and CBS fake news in his tweet, I think he was talking more like I am than the wiki-definition.So you can't expect me to use the wiki-definition to provide examples of what I think Trump was talking about. If that's just off the table, then that's fine too. We're in agreement, "never" was hyperbole. Okay, I doubt I'm in agreement with what we should be talking about when we discuss "fake news".In my opinion, mainstream media publishing blatantly false stories and refusing to correct them is not a problem that we have today.On the other hand, passing off partisan opinions that spin the truth so far that it's barely recognizeable is something that we do have a problem with.For example, when I heard in the mainstream news that Trump passed an executive order to ban muslims I was shocked. So I went to the executive order, itself, and read it. It was temporary and didn't mention the word "muslim" once. "Muslim ban", pssh, what a load of bullshit. That's scary. And these people vote on politicians. I'm going from memeory here, and honeslty I'd have to look into it more before I came to a conclusion, but when I saw Trump calling CNN fake news I didn't see that being because they reported on the existence of the dossier, but instead what they said about it. I'm not sure though, I'll have to look further. I'm probably just going to bow out. I'm operating under a fairly different definition, and really to get into what I'm talking about would be pretty long winded.Like with calling that executive order a muslim ban. It's not a simple exercise of is it true or false. It's layers of details that all can be spun in different directions to build a narative closer to what you want to end up saying. Did it ban muslims? Did it ban muslims? No, it didn't. But if you look at it this way and call that this, then you can call it a muslim ban and not really be saying a blatant falsehood.Getting down to that level of detail and arguing about what words mean isn't really something that I'm interested in. Bitch I might be. Just avoid the mainstream... Court cases, and laws, and executive orders are available online outside of news sources. There isn't always a source. And those are the cases where your reading hearsay. Why cloud your judgement with such drivel?

Sorry, I'm a little busy. This is going to be a drive-by: Right now, the top of the "World" section of Google News is, from CNN*: Pope suggests it's better to be an atheist than a bad ChristianQuoted from the article:

quote:

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"So many Christians are like this, and these people scandalize others," Francis said during morning Mass at Casa Santa Marta, according to Vatican Radio. "How many times have we heard -- all of us, around the neighborhood and elsewhere -- 'But to be a Catholic like that, it's better to be an atheist.' It is that: scandal."
"But what is scandal? Scandal is saying one thing and doing another."

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From a different article from Reuters that I found, they quote:

quote:

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"There are those who say 'I am very Catholic, I always go to Mass, I belong to this and that association'," the head of the 1.2 billion-member Roman Catholic Church said, according to a Vatican Radio transcript.

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He said that some of these people should also say "'my life is not Christian, I don't pay my employees proper salaries, I exploit people, I do dirty business, I launder money, (I lead) a double life'."

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"There are many Catholics who are like this and they cause scandal," he said. "How many times have we all heard people say 'if that person is a Catholic, it is better to be an atheist'."

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Since his election in 2013, Francis has often told Catholics, both priests and lay people, to practice what their religion preaches.

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That's a little different. This is where I would go to a source like the Vatican and look for a transcript of his speach to see what he really said and to see it in context. Asking the question 'How many times have we heard X', at face value, isn't an endorsement of X.The Pope certainly didn't say that "it's better to be an atheist than a bad Christian". Did he suggest it? I dunno yet.Given that the gospel he was giving the Homily for (I assume its from the homily) was the "If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off." one, maybe he was, but I'd have to look into what he actauly said, in context.I surely don't trust the spin that CNN put on it. But I haven't finished the article yet, and I got to get going, so maybe it redeems itself. Or maybe I'll find what the Pope actually said and agree with the article.I just went to Google News and took a look at the headlines after you requested a link and that one jumped out at me as a potential candidate.I haven't dug into it yet, but this is the kind of details and arguing (what did they say and what did the words mean) that I wouldn't think would not be appropriate for this thread, or honestly, my time. I honestly don't really care how accurate these articles are, but I did want to provide an example of the type of things that I am talking about.*upon review, this might not be a good example of truth spun so far that it's barely recognizable, but I'm gonna go ahead and submit this and run. See ya later.

The media is not the message. The media is the thing that the message is delivered on.Mainstream media in the US is bullshit, we should all turn it off. He is bypassing the media and providing a message directly to the people. Given that our media is basically trying to tell us what our opinions should be, I welcome letting the people directly digest the message and form their own opinions.The media can still take the message and spin it and try to form opinions for us, but having the direct source just provides the people another option.Unfortunately, people will have to take personal responsibility for their own critical thinking - and many just don't have the desire to do that.

ABE: Hid link, didn't realize this was in summation.Edited by New Cat's Eye, : ABE