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The Truth – But Not The Whole Truth – About Fake News
The Stiletto ^ | March 16, 2007 | The Stiletto

Posted on 03/17/2007 5:52:30 AM PDT by theothercheek

In a nearly 4,000 word article in Columbia Journalism Review, Columbia J-school adjunct professor Robert Love contends that fake news "comes at us from every quarter of the media - old and new - not just as satire but disguised as the real thing, secretly paid for by folks who want to remain in the shadows" and concludes, "Some of us … aren’t doing all we can to help readers and viewers know the difference between the fake and the honest take."

Love cites these recent examples of fake news which, as it turns out, did not originate with Jon Stewart in his exhaustive review that goes back as far as Roman emperor Constantine!:

The U.S. government’s 2005 initiative to plant "positive news" in Iraqi newspapers, part of a $300 million U.S. effort to sway public opinion about the war. …

Armstrong Williams, the conservative columnist who was hired on the down low to act as a $240,000 sock puppet for the president’s No Child Left Behind program. …

The Department of Health and Human Services … deceptive video news releases … touting the administration’s Medicare plan. …

Both CNN and The New York Times were used by the U.S. military as unwitting co-conspirators in spreading false information, a tactic known as psychological operations, part of an effort to convince Americans the invasion of Iraq was a necessary piece of the war on terror. …

Doctored pictures from war zones? The Los Angeles Times ran one in 2003, and Reuters ran one last year.

Grassroots organizations with Orwellian names like Project Protect, funded not by conservation-minded voters, but the timber industry? The investigative reporter Paul Thacker brought that one to light, along the way revealing that a Fox News science reporter named Steven Milloy had undisclosed ties to the oil and tobacco industries.

Love himself is guilty of not doing "all he can" to expose fake news. His list has one glaring omission: Dan Rather’s fake National Guard memos scoop.

And speaking of Dan-o, his keynote address at Austin’s SXSW Music/Multimedia Festival included this bit of irony: "The Internet is a tremendous tool for not just news" but for "illumination and opening things up." You’ll recall that it was a bunch of bloggers sitting around in their PJs who questioned the authenticity of the documents within hours of Rather’s bogus report.

In Rather’s opinion, many people have lost faith in journalists, because "what we in journalism need is a spine transplant." No, Dan, what journalists need is an uncompromising commitment to accuracy, objectivity and professional ethics. Then people’s faith will be restored.

NOTE: In case I did not put all this links in correctly and you have to go back to the original source, this is the second item in a feature called "The Daily Blade" and follows an item about the appeals court gun control ruling titled, "Save The Children?"


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: danrather; fakenews; nationalguardmemos; pajamahadeen; thestiletto; thestilettoblog
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1 posted on 03/17/2007 5:52:33 AM PDT by theothercheek
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To: theothercheek

Don't forget the ongoing Plame scandal -- oe of the phoniest, most wishful, most pathetic, most cooked-up and warmed-over news stories going. But you'd think from listening to ABC news that they are covering Watergate.


2 posted on 03/17/2007 5:57:48 AM PDT by hemogoblin
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To: hemogoblin

They ARE covering Watergate - the whole point of this thing was for journalists to be able to say they brought down another Republican president.


3 posted on 03/17/2007 6:01:46 AM PDT by theothercheek
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To: theothercheek
Actually there is a whole list of knowing frauds perpetrated by these very "Journalists".

The Initial "reporting" about Afghanistan in 2001, the coverage of the Invasion of Iraq in 2003, Abu Graibe, Fallugha, The Downing Street Memo, Fritzmus, Katerina, the daily hype about Global Warming, Hetosexual Aids, Smoking or Food Nazi propaganda, the fraudulent reporting from the Lebanon War etc etc etc.

Apparently what this pseudo intellectual pretending to be "a Journalist" is doing is simply defining anything he personally disagrees with as "fake News"

Here is the difference. The News provided by the Govt was designed to counter erroneous propaganda being reported as "news". It was not "fake" is was news from a different point of view. The above list is just a few of the stores reported as "news" by "Journalists" that was not just "a different point of view" by knowing reported as "Fact" despite having NO bases in any factual reality.

So I suggest the J school clowns clean up their fraudulent industry rather then accuse others of what THEY have prov en repeatedly of producing.

4 posted on 03/17/2007 6:08:37 AM PDT by MNJohnnie (If you will try being smarter, I will try being nicer.)
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To: theothercheek

I'm shocked!


5 posted on 03/17/2007 6:10:40 AM PDT by mtbopfuyn (I think the border is kind of an artificial barrier - San Antonio councilwoman Patti Radle)
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To: MNJohnnie

Those VNRs that he goes on and on about are a standard PR tool. It is assumed by both the PR agencies and the government that any TV station airing the VNR (or posting it on its Web site) will identify its source and not try to pass it off as its own work product. The producers of the VNRs are not the ones at fault here, it's the managing editors of these TV stations who are lacking in ethics. Imagine how many VNRs for products - like pharmaceuticals - are passed off as news every day. That's the real scandal here, not tbe administration trying to counter institutional news bias with some innocuous PR tactics.


6 posted on 03/17/2007 6:18:47 AM PDT by theothercheek
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To: MNJohnnie
"So I suggest the J school clowns clean up their fraudulent industry rather then accuse others of what THEY have prov en repeatedly of producing."

You must familiar with The St. Pete Slimes and their owner (Non Profit Foundation) The Poynter Institute -- for training 'journalists.'

7 posted on 03/17/2007 6:22:45 AM PDT by litehaus (A memory tooooo long)
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To: theothercheek


This has nothing to do with bringing down a president. This has all been designed to keep Chaney from resigning and being replaced by Codi Rice.

That has always been Clinton's worse nightmare. By cooking up this false story they have forced Chaney to stay as VP because he knows if he resigns and is just a private citizen he will no longer be protected from Democrat witch hunts.


8 posted on 03/17/2007 6:22:46 AM PDT by thegreatmalcolmx (I came to love white people. At least that is what I was taught in my black history class.)
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To: litehaus

Exactly. The MSM is nothing but wall to wall liberal propaganda. They use an occasional 'George Will' who's kind of odd anyway, as an example of their dedication to show both sides. But they really don't.

Conservative ideas are not respected. The MSM loses more credibility every year.


9 posted on 03/17/2007 6:26:57 AM PDT by kjo
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To: theothercheek
This comes to mind:


[An Inconvenient Truth, by Al Gore]

When all is said and done, AIT and global warming climate change will go down in history as one of the greatest hoaxes and scams ever conceived. [Bird flu pandemic might be the second one.]
10 posted on 03/17/2007 6:28:51 AM PDT by TomGuy
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To: thegreatmalcolmx

This Valerie Plame thing started just as Bush's re-election campaign was in full swing. The original leaker was thought to be Rove and even before a special prosecutor was named to investigate people were calling for Rove to resign. The idea was to throw Bush's campaign into such disarray that Kerry would win. And while Condi Rice may be Hill's worst nightmare way back when, another equally scary nightmare has now emerged in the person of Obama.


11 posted on 03/17/2007 6:31:18 AM PDT by theothercheek
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To: thegreatmalcolmx

This Valerie Plame thing started just as Bush's re-election campaign was in full swing. The original leaker was thought to be Rove and even before a special prosecutor was named to investigate people were calling for Rove to resign. The idea was to throw Bush's campaign into such disarray that Kerry would win. And while Condi Rice may be Hill's worst nightmare way back when, another equally scary nightmare has now emerged in the person of Obama.


12 posted on 03/17/2007 6:32:51 AM PDT by theothercheek
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To: theothercheek
did you read the examples? This is surprise a leftist from Columbia who leaves out not only Rathergate, but all the garbage about Diebold that has been debunked and discredited;"Viet Nam was a civil war;""Nixon planned Watergate;" Hastert knew about Foley;Jamil Hussein's reports of atrocities, burned mosques in Baghdad etc. " etc. etc. Expect his article to get wide coverage among "those in the know."
13 posted on 03/17/2007 6:33:17 AM PDT by gusopol3
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To: TomGuy
one of the greatest hoaxes and scams ever conceived

I still vote for "Y2 Kohoutek", a combination of Y2K happening while the Earth was being swallowed by the tail of a comet. And that was before Karl Rove invented the hurricane machine.

14 posted on 03/17/2007 6:36:10 AM PDT by Bernard (Immigration should be rare, safe and legal.)
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To: theothercheek; All

As a professor at Columbia school of journalism, he exists inside the leftist-liberal political bubble that dominates the LameStreamMedia. When you are so used to your own stench, you do not smell it. The major media "news" IS fake news. It is one single political editorial masquerading as "news".


15 posted on 03/17/2007 6:37:33 AM PDT by Wuli
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To: theothercheek
"Some of us ... aren’t doing all we can to help readers and viewers know the difference between the fake and the honest take."
Too many want to remain ignorant and only the superficial.
16 posted on 03/17/2007 6:37:39 AM PDT by philman_36
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To: gusopol3

Oddly, he DID mentioned those doctored photos. Probably because they were done by non-American stringers that Reuters and AP had hired (i.e., not the product of American J-schools - though they could have been). But Gugna Dan is a journalistic hero for "standing up" to Richard Nixon. But if you remember Dano's interview with Saddam, he was licking the dictator's arse Big Time because unlike Nixon, Saddam could pull out a gun and shoot him between the eyes if he got pissed off.


17 posted on 03/17/2007 6:46:22 AM PDT by theothercheek
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To: theothercheek

He left out that mostly he only mentions fake news as coming from conservative's.

So he is also a maker of fake and misleading news.


18 posted on 03/17/2007 6:46:32 AM PDT by stockpirate (To learn about John Kerry, FBI files and the VVAW read my about me page on FR.)
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To: theothercheek
This Valerie Plame thing started just as Bush's re-election campaign was in full swing.

I just posted the following comments in a thread on a completely different topic, but the comment applies to your statement, as well:

The Republicans need to get out ahead of these things and resolved them ASAP.

Dems want to keep various Republican scandals and allegations of corruption in the headlines for the next 18 months, because that helped them win in 06.

Look for more such allegations all the up to the November 08 elections. Real or not, perception becomes reality, and the Dems want to give the perception that the Republicans continue to be corrupt and ridden with scandals. The Republicans need to find a backbone, or they will get buried again in the 08 election.

19 posted on 03/17/2007 6:47:19 AM PDT by TomGuy
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To: theothercheek
"what journalists need is an uncompromising commitment to accuracy, objectivity and professional ethics."

Yes. Of course. However, the problem is far deeper than journalism. I think it's a near-universal failing and a part of the human condition.

It is a rare person who has an uncompromising commitment to accuracy, objectivity, and ethics.

How many people are uncompromisingly accurate and objective--not to mention ethical?

"Does this dress make me look fat?" You're going to say, "Yes"?

"How are you?" "Fine."

Okay. So much for amenities.

How long would it take to give an uncompromisingly accurate and objective statement of one's opinion of some philosophical point, moral dilemma, world situation, etc., and how tedious would it become?

What about an explanation of something like Einstein's theories or St. Augustine's Confessions or Van Gogh's paintings or what it was like during the civil war in Liberia or how Muslims feel about 9/11 or how the Democrat and Republican Parties are alike and differ?

It's hard--maybe impossible--to be uncompromisingly accurate and objective, even in our daily lives and even if we are committed to it and are uncompromisingly ethical.

In fact, it may be easier to be uncompromisingly ethical than uncompromisingly accurate and objective.

This is not to suggest that journalists--or non-journalists who have a reason to distort the news--are committed to accuracy, objectivity, or ethics. Obviously many intentionally distort what is reported.

What I'm saying is that they do so in addition to a widespread--and maybe universal--human failure to be and possibly an inability to be uncompromisingly accurate, objective, and ethical.

20 posted on 03/17/2007 7:04:00 AM PDT by Savage Beast (The Left is America's Ephialtes.)
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