How the News Became Fake

Wall Street Journal ^ | January 25, 2019 | Holman Jenkins

[richardb72]

One can never wear out Walter Lippmann’s observation that journalists traffic in stereotypes, not only because they enable “economy of effort.” The stereotypes we embrace also assure us of our own status, such that “any disturbance of the stereotypes seems like an attack upon the foundations of the universe.”

This has been nicely demonstrated in the controversy over the Covington Catholic High School students at the Lincoln Memorial. A snippet of video was confidently interpreted as showing an encounter between racist white teenage male students and a dignified Native American Vietnam veteran solemnly banging on his drum in communion with the spirits of his ancestors and in harmony with nature....

This problem runs deeper than we seem to realize. The Washington Post recently devoted 5,000 words to a fake-news purveyor without noticing the significance of its own reporting: The guy running the site was a liberal who got his jollies (and made money) by inventing tall tales to titillate conservatives. In Alabama’s U.S. Senate race, we belatedly learn, a liberal tech billionaire funded the creation of fake conservative Facebook pages to influence conservative voters. Or read conservative scholar John Lott’s lengthy account of how Jonah Peretti, founder of BuzzFeed, the supposedly reputable news site, stole Mr. Lott’s identity and sent out fake emails in his name.

Maybe the best account of the Mall incident is Caitlin Flanagan’s in the Atlantic, particularly how CNN clung to its original stereotype even as contradictory information poured in. You might wonder what differentiates Claas Relotius, the German reporter who invented fake details about “Trump’s America” for the prestigious Spiegel magazine, from the general run of journalists? Only that he was a fabulist; he was hardly unique in thinking his job was to find ways to tell editors and readers what they wanted to hear.....

[ClearCase_guy]

I used to subscribe the the WSJ. It was a great paper. But years ago it became fake news by pushing stupid Leftist, PC ideas in news and in editorials. Now they want to be holier-than-thou and criticize newspapers for Fake News?

Maybe they need to look at themselves.

[Slyfox]

Nope ... pay wall ... so I am not going to try to read it.

However, the real story about "fake news" is as follows:

When "pizzagate" became a deal, Hillary and her media toads needed to squash it, so they yelled out that it was just "fake news."

Hoping to tag pizzagate as not really worth the effort for people to look into they began to label anything true and having to do with Hillary as "fake news."

Donald Trump, who is a master did something the toads had no comeback for and he pointed to CNN at a press conference and said, "YOU are fake news."

So, THAT, my FRiends, is the real story about "Fake News."

[353FMG]

The news became fake because the Deep State’s deeply ingrained and senseless hatred for Trump. It is something demonic.

[Zeneta]

Melanie Phillips: How the media manipulates truth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=te01MtCJP0w&t=1190s

Jump to 5 or 6 minutes in

She explains it all

[Shadow44]

The news has always been fake, even as far back as Hearst.

The only difference is how vulgar and hackneyed it is.

[Roccus]

The news became fake because the Deep State’s deeply ingrained and senseless hatred for Trump.

You're only off by a century or so.

[The_Media_never_lie]

From what I have recently read, WSJ is a fake news source. Would they please tell us when they are not faking?

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Before the advent of the wire services, the news was all about the opinions of the printers of the newspapers which published it. Just like the Rush Limbaugh show is about the opinions of Rush Limbaugh now.

With the advent of the AP and other later wire services, the news became about what was on “the wire.” In addition to what the local newspaper contributed to “the wire.” People were questioning the concentration of propaganda power which the AP represented at least as early as the 1870s, and the AP responded that its member newspapers contributed much/most of its content, and those newspapers notoriously did not agree about much of anything (and at the time, that was true). So, the AP asserted, the AP itself was “objective.”

The problem is that the logic of commercial success in journalism maps directly to anticapitalist propaganda. That is, successful journalism is about bad news about society, and thus about advertising the need for more government. And that

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. - Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (1776)

Since “the wire” is a virtual meeting of “people of the trade” of journalism, in operation continuous operation since the Civil War, inevitably - by now, and long since - journalists had to conspire against the public in favor of journalism. In favor, that is, of arrogant condemnation of society, and naive promotion of government.

Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one . . . — Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)

Fake news follows inevitably from self-interest and self regard of journalists.

[jocon307]

That Flanagan piece is excellent, she’s no righty and she includes a wee bit of boo Trump, but I wouldn’t even call it trump bashing. If you want details of what happened that day read her article.

[newfreep]

Fake news goes back to the NYT’s Walter Duranty’s fake reporting of the communist revolution and perpetuating Lenin/Stalin’s cult..

Later, at CBS, Uncle Walter knowingly lied when he reported the US lost the TET Offensive. That changed the entire dynamic in America.

Fake News (aka Communist Propaganda) continued growing but under hussein44, it grew on steroids.

[morphing libertarian]

fake news goes back a lot longer. earlier example, the boston massacre, the s”sinking” of the Maine in Havana with the blame going to the spanish pushed by Hearst

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

Thanks for posting that interesting and insightful analysis.

[sauropod]

bkmk

[MortMan]

They became advocates.

[trebb]

Yep - ironic that the WSJ thinks it has the creds to call out other Fake News entities...it’s been in the tank at least 6 years now.