Mainstream Media is Now Whining About the “Fake News” Hysteria It Created
As someone who followed the fluid and rapid progression of the “fake news” meme very closely, I can tell you that it didn’t happen the way The New York Times claims. First, let’s discuss what the term “fake news” should mean. I think the Snopes definition above is fine: “people who purposely fabricated stories for clicks and revenue.” If mainstream media had held to this standard following the election, there wouldn’t have been a problem. Nobody in alternative media would’ve cared, but that’s not what happened.
Rather, ensconced in an election-loss driven hysteria, various mainstream media outlets intentionally starting blurring the definition of fake news in order to slander the competition. This really got started with the promotion of a ridiculous list of websites to avoid compiled by a loony professor at Merrimack college. I covered the story barely a week after the election in the post, Zerohedge Included in What NY Magazine Calls ‘Extremely Helpful List of Fake and Misleading News Sites.’ Here’s some of what I observed.
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Of course, that was just the beginning. What really enraged everyone, including myself, was when The Washington Post dropped all journalistic standards to promote a “fake news” list created by the unknown, anonymous and obviously clownish organization PropOrNot. You all know what happened next, but if you want to revisit my thoughts on the topic, see:
After all that, alternative media rightly appropriated the term, and accusations of “fake news” are now more often directed at billionaire-owned mainstream media than independent media. The response? Corporate media is crying foul and reinventing history by claiming that it was alt media barbarians who twisted the term “fake news” for propaganda purposes, when the exact opposite happened. Monumentally pathetic.
As someone who followed the fluid and rapid progression of the “fake news” meme very closely, I can tell you that it didn’t happen the way The New York Times claims. First, let’s discuss what the term “fake news” should mean. I think the Snopes definition above is fine: “people who purposely fabricated stories for clicks and revenue.” If mainstream media had held to this standard following the election, there wouldn’t have been a problem. Nobody in alternative media would’ve cared, but that’s not what happened.
Rather, ensconced in an election-loss driven hysteria, various mainstream media outlets intentionally starting blurring the definition of fake news in order to slander the competition. This really got started with the promotion of a ridiculous list of websites to avoid compiled by a loony professor at Merrimack college. I covered the story barely a week after the election in the post, Zerohedge Included in What NY Magazine Calls ‘Extremely Helpful List of Fake and Misleading News Sites.’ Here’s some of what I observed.
[clip]
Of course, that was just the beginning. What really enraged everyone, including myself, was when The Washington Post dropped all journalistic standards to promote a “fake news” list created by the unknown, anonymous and obviously clownish organization PropOrNot. You all know what happened next, but if you want to revisit my thoughts on the topic, see:
After all that, alternative media rightly appropriated the term, and accusations of “fake news” are now more often directed at billionaire-owned mainstream media than independent media. The response? Corporate media is crying foul and reinventing history by claiming that it was alt media barbarians who twisted the term “fake news” for propaganda purposes, when the exact opposite happened. Monumentally pathetic.