> A newspaper at least might have some sort of moral obligation to tell the truth.
Very few people read newspapers. And even then, newspapers aren't news anymore either, it's entertainment, using emotion to deliver "news", not facts nor reason. It's all about getting the audience "triggered".
This whole "fake news" thing is so hypocrite, what "trusted" news don't understand is that they lied so much in the past people stopped trusting them. That's why people check "alternative news sources". Main stream media needs to stop taking readers trust for granted, and ask themselves why they lost that trust at first place.
It reminds me of the talk about how "diet advice changes constantly" but even given the very human foibles in any recommended diet (e.g. genuine mistakes, oversimplifying to communicate better, industry pressure, inertia in the face of new evidence) I still don't remember anyone saying "fruit and vegetables are bad for you" or "eat as many calories as you like, it's cool", "don't exercise, that's for suckers" or anything on that scale, so while you can bring up specific issues, they'll be blips in the big picture.
I'd guess the same applies to attacks on "the mainstream media".
Fruit is very easy to eat to excess, especially when you labor under the delusion that it couldn't be bad for you, as you seem to be doing. The problem is that it has a ton of sugar in it. You can gain weight and raise your blood sugar to unhealthy levels pretty quick just eating extra fruit.
This is a perfect example of the kind of hyper-focus that loses track of the big picture and just becomes nonsensical as a result.
Fruit is not a threat to your health, even diabetics are encouraged to eat more fruit. On the list of foods that can cause you to gain weight and raise your blood sugar to unhealthy levels it's way down the list, with a low glycemic load, and it actually provides fibre and other benefits that many things on that list don't.
Would you kindly point me to a lie anywhere on the current front pages of the New York Times, Guardian, Atlantic, New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, or Economist?
More specifically: point us to a lie of the kind of severity that http://usainfonews.com and http://usapoliticszone.com peddle. Do a WHOIS on those sites or visit them in a sandbox; they're Macedonian in origin, demonstrably falsified, and have been spotted in the wild on Facebook.
I can't understand why you are being downvoted here, except perhaps the political distraction. On this issue, the whole Trump / Obama / US politics angle really shouldn't be the point. It's pretty easy to find articles I would consider the original definition of "fake news" (conspiracy theory clickbait) that have nothing to do with Obama / Trump or US politics.
To put it this way, I find nothing in more sober "mainstream news" that compares to headlines like "CDC works in collusion with vaccine manufacturers... can you really trust their “fake science?”" (http://www.naturalnews.com/2017-01-26-cdc-history-of-fake-sc...).
Or, in one of the sites you linked: "ONLY ONE SECRET IN FOODS CAN LITERALLY SAVE YOU FROM EVERYTHING" (http://usainfonews.com/index.php/2017/01/19/one-secret-foods...). (The secret... antioxidants can "cure" the "malignancy of oxygen" that causes all diseases... ???)
It is the conspiracy mindset -- not necessarily the political angle -- that to me distinguished the original definition of fake news. Generally the original "fake news" tends to (as above) take small nuggets from questionable sources and utilize boogeymans based on institutional mistrust to weave their narrative.
For instance, the "CDC is fake science" article seems to provide scant evidence for their narrative, other than testimonial from one scientist whose stance is... um... controversial (http://www.snopes.com/medical/disease/cdcwhistleblower.asp), a mis-characterization of flu shots as "vaccines", and Evil Shadowy Big Pharma corporations who coerce "fake science" for profit.
The antioxidants article uses an extremely clickbait-y headline to peddle a pseudo-scientific promotion of antioxidants.
This type of stuff has been around for a while ("conspiracy theories") so really it's nothing new. Still, for this reason, personally, I have issues with people lumping in the New York Times and Wall Street Journals of the world in the same "fake news" boat as these type of sites.
what does the phrase "Macedonian in origin" mean? I googled that and google is telling me about the historical origins of Macedonia. Are you making up that phrase? Are your trying to imply that the sources are ancient from a long time ago? Or do you mean they have "questionable" origins. If so, just say "questionable origins".
Macedonia is still around, that's a literal phrase. I don't know how you would tell from WHOIS, but apparently a lot of people in Macedonia are responsible for the most egregious fake news sites: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38168281
Here's what I get from `whois usapoliticszone.com`. It's possible that the information is falsified, but it's hard to understand why a legitimate well-researched news site would list an individual in Macedonia with ICANN when they registered a domain:
I mean literally do a WHOIS query on those domains. They're registered to Macedonian citizens using addresses in Macedonia (a.k.a. the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia).
He's building a huge wall, wants to deport millions and specifically make a list for migrant crimes, a similar thing done to Jews by the Nazi's. He's banning people from specific places from entering and generalizing them all to be terrorists or rapists.
There are recordings of him talking about casually committing sexual assault. Allegations of rape etc that occurred long before he ran for president.
The Vice President he selected advocated electroshock therapy for LGBT people.
His son admitted in a recording they get a lot of money from Russia and love Russia has been his only consistent policy.
He has been arguing for increased nuclear proliferation.
On the Golden showers Russia & Trump threw a fit over this accusation way out of proportion of what would be a reasonable response if it wasn't true.
That story came from a leaked report written by a well-respected former intelligence officer. The article does not state them as fact, instead remarks on the source of the unverified information, and gives background on Russian blackmail intelligence operations.
That's not fake news. And the whole reason anyone was writing about it was because Buzzfeed published the memo - other news organisations had a copy of it for months but didn't publish, specifically because they couldn't verify the information.
Like I said, the report was compiled by a respected former intelligence officer. It hasn't been possible to verify all the claims (as secret operations often aren't, which is why these supposedly untrustworthy media outlets didn't publish it) but that means it is unverified, not that it is completely fabricated.
A large portion of the fake news in closed political Facebook groups is actually fake – it's Macedonian in origin, tends to use throwaway domains like http://usainfonews.com and http://usapoliticszone.com (seriously, do a WHOIS on those), uses plagiarized and/or demonstrably false content, and results in compensation for the people who post it. The purported compensation often far outstrips what anyone could reasonably expect from advertising revenue. You can join these groups and watch Americans comment on the stories – apparently believing the blatantly false news stories, by the thousands.
> A newspaper at least might have some sort of moral obligation to tell the truth.
A newspaper ultimately has an obligation to its stockholders. If the stockholders demand that the newspaper tells the truth, then so be it...but most stockholders would want to maximize profits. If they believe telling the truth will maximize profits, then they will probably encourage that, but it likely doesn't.
However the masses of Facebook have no such obligation.