I hate this fake news trend. Fake news is just the newest unmeasurable buzzword. The concept is fine but it is something that is largely unprovable except for the most extreme cases. Who is to say that one person’s real perception of reality is fake news while another’s is real news?
This concept of fake news is simply new categorization for the historical trend of trying to influence readers to a writer’s point of view. All writers are trying to influence – they are trying to convince a reader that they are someone that should be subscribed to daily or cause an action or cause a way of thinking to occur (good or bad). No one writes so that they can be forgotten.
The problem now is that journalism itself is beginning to become as politicized as normal politics are. How long until reality TV shows are simply branded #fakenews and everyone boycotts them? That’s what they are even if everyone knows it. But then again, the fact that they are on television and drawing an audience of millions is real news. Just like that fake news becomes real news because of the cultural situation.
99% of news is real news. That doesn’t mean that it is valuable, neutral, independent, accurate, timely or presented correctly. 99% of news is being written and prepared for a certain audience with a certain view and a certain way of viewing the world. DailyKos and Breitbart are simply two sides of the same coin. They draw an audience that thinks a certain way, runs off opposing views, become an echo chamber for their views and attempt to mold the audience to even further agreeing to the desired views.
Neither are necessarily fake news, they simply present information in a way that appeals to each of their (very large) audiences. Opinion is news and much of what goes out is simply opinion informed by some select facts sprinkled in.
But regardless, fake news is just 2017’s buzz word. Let’s kill it and focus on the root causes that are actually happening – clickbait journalism (because that’s how many journalists are paid online), partisan bickering, echo-chamber reporting, selective presentation of fact and generally unresearched writing. These are things that can each be fixed, identified and tagged. Let’s start there.