From Headline to Photograph, a Fake News Masterpiece

The New York Times ^ | Jan 18, 2017 | Scott Shane

[proxy_user]

It was early fall, and Donald J. Trump, behind in the polls, seemed to be preparing a rationale in case a winner like him somehow managed to lose. “I’m afraid the election is going to be rigged, I have to be honest,” the Republican nominee told a riled-up crowd in Columbus, Ohio. He was hearing “more and more” about evidence of rigging, he added, leaving the details to his supporters’ imagination.

A few weeks later, Cameron Harris, a new college graduate with a fervent interest in Maryland Republican politics and a need for cash, sat down at the kitchen table in his apartment to fill in the details Mr. Trump had left out. In a dubious cyberart just coming into its prime, this bogus story would be his masterpiece.

Mr. Harris started by crafting the headline: “BREAKING: ‘Tens of thousands’ of fraudulent Clinton votes found in Ohio warehouse.” It made sense, he figured, to locate this shocking discovery in the very city and state where Mr. Trump had highlighted his “rigged” meme.

****

At his kitchen table that night in September, Mr. Harris wondered: Who might have found these fraudulent Clinton ballots? So he invented “Randall Prince, a Columbus-area electrical worker.” This Everyman, a “Trump supporter” whose name hinted at a sort of nobility, had entered a little-used back room at the warehouse and stumbled upon stacked boxes of ballots pre-marked for Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Harris decided.

“No one really goes in this building. It’s mainly used for short-term storage by a commercial plumber,” Prince said.

In case anyone missed the significance of the find, Mr. Harris made it plain: “What he found could allegedly be evidence of a massive operation designed to deliver Clinton the crucial swing state.”

[proxy_user]

We report, you decide. He did make the $5000 he needed: "He had graduated from Davidson College in North Carolina in May, and he needed to pay his living expenses. “I spent the money on student loans, car payments and rent,” he said."

[Fido969]

Where’s the NYT story on leftie fake news?

[Bubba_Leroy]

But I thought it was the Russians that did it.

[RegulatorCountry]

I don’t recall this exactly shaking the halls of governance. I don’t really recall it all.

Shouldn’t a “fake news masterpiece” have made, well, you know, like, the news?

[Red Badger]

he had simply bought the abandoned web address for $5 at ExpiredDomains.net. Within a few days, the story, which had taken him 15 minutes to concoct, had earned him about $5,000. That was a sizable share of the $22,000 an accounting statement shows he made during the presidential campaign from ads for shoes, hair gel and web design that Google had placed on his site.

Good work if you can get it!.................

[Squantos]

So he created a fake story about a fake incident that parroted real world events that really were taking place but couldn’t be proven at the time ..... ?

I’m reading this right ???

[slumber1]

I remember this. It was all over social media. Some of us knew it sounded fake but others ran with it. It was still going around right up until the election

[T Ruth]

nyt explains how their “journalists” work.

[proxy_user]

And there’s no messy resumes, applications, or interviews. You just get down to work, and the money comes in!

[knarf]

I remember this story and it was buried in all the OTHER stories flying around at that time.

I was already a Trump supporter so I naturally believed this to be true, but I also had video of coughing, hacking, stumbling, crazy-eyes and ... it was all so overwhelming.

None of this alters my opinion af a great Trump Presidency, but it DOES show that we really DID play by their rules and used it against them

[mj1234]

LOL!

spitting up my coffee

yep , the slimes telling us how fake news is made-LOL

[\/\/ayne]

I hope he can retire by investing the money because his political reputation is shot.

[Steve_Seattle]

Somehow I missed this story when it came out, and even if I’d heard it, I would have waited for verification. And if it was verified or knocked down, it wouldn’t have made a difference how I voted.

[Steve_Seattle]

"As Mr. Trump takes office this week, the beneficiary of at least a modest electoral boost from a flood of fakery, Mr. Harris and his ersatz-news website, CHristianTimesNewspaper.com, make for an illuminating tale."

Can the Times demonstrate that even one vote changed as a result of this and other pro-Trump or anti-Clinton "fake news"?

On the other hand, Trump was undoubtedly hurt by fake news from the NYT and others that he was a racist, had made fun of a reporter's disability, was a Nazi, a KKK supporter/member, and an anti-Semite.

[RedWulf]

Still waiting the NYT to cover the 5 to 1 recorded votes to to actual ballots for Hillary in Detroit.

The election was rigged, but like this and in so many other things Hillary Clinton is incompetent.

[Steve_Seattle]

Cameron Harris needs to be banned from any future involvement in Republican politics or professional journalism.

[Grimmy]

Clinton and the DNC did commit massive voter fraud.

They did rig the vote. They just didn’t do it bigly enough.

Trump was correct in his accusations. The problem for the destructionists is that they believed their own propaganda and idiocy on their popularity levels and didn’t commit *enough* fraud.

[doug from upland]

This is typical of political “dirty tricks” to gain an advantage. Well done. Now, perhaps Scott Shane can do a piece on how Dems use absentee ballots from those in care facilities.

[relictele]

It was mere days ago the MSM announced they wouldn’t use the term ‘fake news.’

[JimRed]

So he created a fake story about a fake incident that parroted real world events that really were taking place but couldn’t be proven at the time ..... ?

Like the Bush/National guard flap and the media declaration of "fake but accurate"?