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Protecting America From Fake News
newsmax ^ | Nov 23, 2017 | David Ignatius

Posted on 11/23/2017 11:26:28 PM PST by Oshkalaboomboom

Amid the slithering mess of problems that emerged in 2017, the one that bothers me most is that people don't seem to know what's true anymore. "Facts" this year got put in quotation marks.

All the other political difficulties of the Donald Trump era are subsumed in this one. If we aren't sure what's true, how can we act to make things better? If we don't know where we are on the map, how do we know which way to move? Democracy assumes a well-informed citizenry that argues about solutions — not about facts.

We can all choose our favorite examples of America's increasing difficulty in agreeing about evidence: the disdain for science among climate-change skeptics; the refusal to believe allegations about people we like, and the overeagerness to denounce those we don't like; the way in which political polarization has spread into every area of our common life — including sports.

What should thoughtful people do about this overarching problem? Part of the answer lies with my profession, the news business. We need to work harder to make sure that we're unbiased truth-tellers, not a series of echo chambers. When every story in a newspaper or on a website or cable channel seems to be going in the same direction, that's a sign that something's wrong. That's one reason I'd like to see a return of ombudsmen, to hold news organizations more accountable.

But journalists need new tools. We can't always vet every fact. We rely on certain trusted sources, news services such as the Associated Press or Reuters. But even those superbly professional fact-gatherers sometimes have trouble verifying information. Social media can help — people can upload video from their cellphones of events as they happen. But we're learning that social media can be tools of deception

(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: dnctalkingpoints; fakenews; socialistnetworking; viralvideo
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The problem today is that we have too many parrots and not enough journalists. This guy is a perfect example, citing the AP and Reuters as trusted sources.
1 posted on 11/23/2017 11:26:28 PM PST by Oshkalaboomboom
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

Shakin’ my red necked head


2 posted on 11/23/2017 11:27:43 PM PST by HiTech RedNeck (Tryin' hard to win the No-Bull Prize.)
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To: Oshkalaboomboom
… the disdain for science among climate-change skeptics …
Oh brother. It is the so-called “skeptics” that uphold science.
3 posted on 11/23/2017 11:31:21 PM PST by Olog-hai ("No Republican, no matter how liberal, is going to woo a Democratic vote." -- Ronald Reagan, 1960)
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To: Oshkalaboomboom
[David] Ignatius was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His parents are Nancy Sharpless (née Weiser) and Paul Robert Ignatius, a former Secretary of the Navy (1967–69), president of The Washington Post, and former president of the Air Transport Association. He is of Armenian descent on his father's side, with ancestors from Harput, Elazığ, Turkey; his mother, a descendant of Puritan minister Cotton Mather, is of German and English descent.

Ignatius was raised in Washington, D.C., where he attended St. Albans School. He then attended Harvard College, from which he graduated magna cum laude in 1973. Ignatius was awarded a Frank Knox Fellowship from Harvard University and studied at King's College, Cambridge, where he received a diploma in economics.

He is married to Dr. Eve Thornberg Ignatius, with whom he has three daughters.

After completing his education, Ignatius was an editor at the Washington Monthly before moving to the Wall Street Journal, where he spent ten years as a reporter. At the Journal, Ignatius first covered the steel industry in Pittsburgh. He then moved to Washington where he covered the Justice Department, the CIA, and the Senate. Ignatius was the Journal's Middle East correspondent between 1980 and 1983, during which time he covered the wars in Lebanon and Iraq. He returned to Washington in 1984, becoming chief diplomatic correspondent. In 1985 he received the Edward Weintal Prize for Diplomatic Reporting.

In 1986, Ignatius left the Journal for the Washington Post. From 1986 to 1990, he was the editor of the “Outlook” section. From 1990 to 1992 he was foreign editor, and oversaw the paper's Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. From 1993 to 1999, he served as assistant managing editor in charge of business news. In 1999, he began writing a twice-weekly column on global politics, economics and international affairs.

In 2000, he became the executive editor of the International Herald Tribune in Paris. He returned to the Post in 2002 when the Post sold its interest in the Herald Tribune. Ignatius continued to write his column once a week during his tenure at the Herald Tribune, resuming twice-weekly columns after his return to the Post. His column is syndicated worldwide by The Washington Post Writers Group. The column won the 2000 Gerald Loeb Award for Commentary and a 2004 Edward Weintal Prize. In writing his column, Ignatius frequently travels to the Middle East and interviews leaders such as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Hassan Nasrallah, the head of the Lebanese military organization Hezbollah.

Ignatius’s writing has also appeared in the New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, Foreign Affairs, The New Republic, Talk Magazine, and The Washington Monthly.

Source: Wikipedia.
4 posted on 11/23/2017 11:43:02 PM PST by Steely Tom ([Seth Rich] == [the Democrat's John Dean])
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

the disdain for science among

Those that reject biology and feel there are 58 genders.


5 posted on 11/23/2017 11:55:35 PM PST by NoLibZone (If ISIS is playing the NFL I will root for ISIS.)
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To: NoLibZone
Those that reject biology and feel there are 58 genders.

Eureka. It’s not as bad as I thought. I thought the libtards were claiming there are 59. 😀😆😄🤗😁

6 posted on 11/24/2017 12:03:05 AM PST by Mark17 (Genesis chapter 1 verse 1. In the beginning GOD....And the rest, as they say, is HIS-story)
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

It didn’t get any more FAKE NEWS than Dan Ratherbiased’s attempt to steal the 2004 presidential election for John FTA Kerry and yet the media all circled the wagons and Time-Lies-Warner-Turner-HBO even doubled down and did a revisionist history program about it.

“Fake but ACCURATE” was the Leftist claim.


7 posted on 11/24/2017 12:14:05 AM PST by a fool in paradise (Did Barack Obama denounce Communism and dictatorships when he visited Cuba as a puppet of the State?)
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

>>What should thoughtful people do about this overarching problem? Part of the answer lies with my profession, the news business. We need to work harder to make sure that we’re unbiased truth-tellers, not a series of echo chambers. When every story in a newspaper or on a website or cable channel seems to be going in the same direction, that’s a sign that something’s wrong. That’s one reason I’d like to see a return of ombudsmen, to hold news organizations more accountable.

Every damned crooked member of Journo-List that conspired and colluded to frame the day’s talking points and even coordinated “press conference” questions should have been exposed by name on the front page of every paper and run out of town.

That they weren’t shows that the MSM has ZERO interest in honest and objective journalism. They serve the DNC and network the messaging so everyone spouts from the same script.


8 posted on 11/24/2017 12:17:35 AM PST by a fool in paradise (Did Barack Obama denounce Communism and dictatorships when he visited Cuba as a puppet of the State?)
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To: Oshkalaboomboom
"...the refusal to believe allegations about people we like ...

Never trust a man who, when he pretends to criticizes himself, uses 'we.' It's a double virtue signal - that he recognizes it in others, not himself, but is 'big' enough to include himself the the dirty thrall of humanity he seeks only to help.

9 posted on 11/24/2017 12:44:42 AM PST by tinyowl (A is A)
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

Maybe the J-schools could go back to teaching who, what, when, where and how journalism? Just the facts, without the partisanship.


10 posted on 11/24/2017 1:55:58 AM PST by buckalfa (Slip sliding away towards senility.)
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

Why do we act like this is new? Facts? There was a time when the world is FLAT, was a fact. Everyone knew it and no one could prove different. Of course that changed and we do know know different facts about that.


11 posted on 11/24/2017 2:58:49 AM PST by 48th SPS Crusader (I am an American. Not a Republican or a Democrat)
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To: NoLibZone
On that note:


12 posted on 11/24/2017 3:39:33 AM PST by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

Bias? What Bias?

For eight long years they treated Barack Obama’s fantasies as facts and his failures as successes.

Now they make up their own fantasies about President Trump and spin his successes as failures.


13 posted on 11/24/2017 3:40:08 AM PST by Vlad The Inhaler (United We Stand - Divided We Fall. Remember: Diversity is the opposite of unity.)
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To: Vlad The Inhaler

Obama’s failures were the primary reason for Trump’s victory - but it isn’t PC to say that because Obama’s (half) black so anything he does is a triumph for “his” people...


14 posted on 11/24/2017 3:56:04 AM PST by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

The other day the two leading NYC papers (NY Daily News and NY Post”) ran nearly identical headlines (bashing Trump for seeming to support Moore): “I’m with perv” and “I’m with THE perv”. No reason to pretend that 95% of the “news” out there isn’t coming from one source anymore...


15 posted on 11/24/2017 4:03:42 AM PST by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: Steely Tom

It’s quite astonishing, to me, how someone with all the education and experience described in your post could be as ignorant as is quite evident in his writing. He clearly epitomizes how life in the Swamp absolutely destroys your brain.


16 posted on 11/24/2017 4:41:23 AM PST by norwaypinesavage (The stone age didn't end because we ran out of stones.)
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

“the over-eagerness to denounce those we don’t like”

Gossip, rumor mongering, wild assumption-making, trash-talking, myth perpetuation, etc...People have become much too quick to prejudge their fellow Americans. All I can come up with for a reason is that they find it to be personally empowering because now and more than ever do they otherwise feel powerless.

One of the most glaring examples I ever became aware of was in a workplace office setting- A guy who was obviously athletic, kinda cool-looking, and his clothes always fit well...great hair, smart, but not a ‘perfect person’ in reality. This guy had so many chinks in his armor left by former acquaintances, you could tell that he had put up with a lot from people who wanted to have a piece of him, probably because they didn’t have what he was obviously born with, hence the “armor”. I guess you could say that for a guy, he had ‘it’ in a way that nobody else in that office did. He could make basic, average-cost business casual wear look better than it really was.

Others (men and women) in the room appeared to feel uncomfortable when he was in the vicinity and/or speaking to work-related issues or even just idle chatter between he and almost anyone else, especially the higher-ups. I could see that he had great potential for advancement and so could they.

The difference between those folks and myself (I guess) was that I didn’t feel that insecure at my position, and so I kind of rooted for the guy but then things started getting nasty with the others setting up a kind of invisible social blockade against him. I could tell that he had been through it before and it wasn’t too long before it showed on his face. He knew what they were doing but what could he say?

Once this pack of professional hyenas picked up on the fact that they had hurt him, they doubled down until he just stopped showing up for work and nobody ever asked “Hey, where’s Jason been?”.

By then, my opinion of my co-workers had changed for the worse and it must’ve shown on my face too. I was soon to be on my way out of there as well.

I think this kind of thing happens every day in America and it seems kind of pathetic that adults who should know better are behaving this way for the shallowest of reasons. Things could have been a lot different if they would have supported Jason but they chose not to and it was a lot like what I’ve been seeing in the news with politicians and journalists going to extremes in order to protect themselves from what they perceive as a threat to their self-esteem and job security.


17 posted on 11/24/2017 4:49:15 AM PST by equaviator (There's nothing like the universe to bring you down to earth.)
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To: FreedomPoster

Attack helicopter gender had me spewing coffee. Where did you find that?


18 posted on 11/24/2017 4:59:56 AM PST by Comment Not Approved (When bureaucrats outlaw hunting, outlaws will hunt bureaucrats.)
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To: Comment Not Approved

Reddit /The_Donald


19 posted on 11/24/2017 5:07:51 AM PST by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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To: Vlad The Inhaler
"They tapped Trump Towers" Ridiculous ! ..but true.

"Trump removed the MLK bust from Oval Office." Racist !...but false.

Just 2 fake news stories that come to top of mind. Dozens of times, Trump was accused of falsehoods, only to be proven true.

Writing in Newsmax, Ignatius may be acknowledging our side.

20 posted on 11/24/2017 5:09:36 AM PST by chiller (If liberals didn't have double standards, they'd have none at all.)
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