by Jack O'Lanterni, President of Fake News International It’s shocking to think that President Donald Trump
and late night host Stephen Colbert may have colluded to plagiarize
the concept of The Fakies/Fake News Awards developed by Danny Murphy a year ago. And yet, the evidence is easy to find.
by Jack O'Lanterni, President of Fake News International
The Fakies - Fake News Awards
2017 was another tremendous year for fake news. Never before has
so much fake news affected so many people in so many ways with such great
consequences. Fake News International is pleased to announce the preliminary
list of nominees for the Second Annual Fakies Awards.
The Fakies Awards are presented annually on April 1st
in Macedonia to honor the best of fake news throughout the previous year. This
year’s extravaganza will be held at the fabulous Taj Majal Resort in the heart
of Macedonia City. P.T. Barnum, III, will be the Master of Ceremonies.
This is not the U.S. Army football team
kneeling during the National Anthem.
A picture is worth a thousand
words, and a picture that gets shared can get exposure at exponential levels. Unfortunately,
pictures can be altered in ways that do not depict reality. Sometimes a picture
doesn’t even need any alteration. Sometimes, all a skilled photo distributor
needs to do is to attach a provocative story related to trending news.
For example, one very hot
topic has been protests by NFL players who take a knee during the National
Anthem. The photo at the top of this post shows the U.S. Navy football team
kneeling in unison for prayer before a game against the University of Tulsa. However,
those players certainly didn’t take a knee during the playing of the National
Anthem.
Note: This post is an example of satirical fake news. In a speech at the White House Rose Garden,
President Trump announced an executive order which will limit the number of
punchlines per minute by late-nite comedians. Holding up a pen, he said, “Barak
Obama once said he could get things done with a pen and a phone. Well, he left
a few of his pens behind, and let me tell you, they work very well.”
President Trump explained his rationale for his
new executive order. “The late-nite comedians are a disgrace. They’ve
weaponized sarcasm, irony, and mockery, and other tricks of their disgusting
trade. Night after night, they destroy the lives of Americans. The carnage has
increased over the past few decades, and especially since the beginning of my
term in office. These people are indiscriminate. They target innocent men,
women, and children with no regard for common decency whatsoever.
Fake stories have been
passed off as news for a long time. Since the turn of the millennium, fake news
has been evolving at an alarming pace.
Aside from disconnecting and
finding a wireless cave to live in, there’s probably no way to avoid fake news
completely. However, it is possible to avoid being fooled by fake news.
Fake News 101 will help
readers to recognize various types of fake news including satire, alternative
facts, propaganda, and more.
If you’re ready to join the
battle against fake news and become a Fake News Warrior, Fake News 101 will be
an indispensable resource.
Danny Murphy is an
informative and entertaining public speaker. He is available to speak on topics
related to Fake News at conferences, seminars, and other events. Send him an
email to check into his availability.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I tweeted weak and weary,
Over many vain and various tweets galore,
While I tweeted nearly sleeping, suddenly there came a pecking,
As of someone gently pecking, pecking my computer screen.
'Tis some follower, I muttered, pecking my computer screen.
Only this and nothing more.
I refreshed my browser screen, when with many a chirp and tweet,
Out there flew a tweeting birdie, from inside my browser screen.
The birdie perched upon my shoulder and in my ear began to tweet,
Perched, and tweeting, and nothing more.
"Birdie," said I, "thou demonic thing,
Take thyself from off my shoulder and take thy beak from out my heart.
Leave this place and fly back, back to my computer screen."
Quoth the birdie, "Nevermore."
And the birdie, never sleeping,
Still is tweeting, still is tweeting,
Tweeting till forevermore.
Note: This piece borrows heavily from Edgar Allen Poe's poem The Raven, a literary masterpiece which is in the public domain.
The President is tweeting, is tweeting, is tweeting...
When the President has trouble sleeping, He frequently turns to tweeting. Sometimes he'll tweet till the morning, And change policies with no warning. You might say it's his style of leading.
Over a hundred years ago, Rev. W.L. Watkinson preached a sermon titled The Invincible Strategy. In it, he said, “It is far better to light the candle than to curse the darkness.” These days people prefer to light Molotov cocktails and other incendiary devices.
True Story! Alex Jones of Infowars apologizes for defaming Chobani, LLC.
In April, Alex Jones of Infowars published a tweet and a
video with the headline, “Idaho Yogurt Maker Caught Importing Migrant Rapists.”
The company was Chobani. The story, which was shared widely, was not true. Chobani
sued. Mr. Jones apologized.
“During the week of April 10,
2017, certain statements were made on the InfowarsTwitter feed
and YouTube channel regarding Chobani, LLC that I now understand to be wrong.
The tweets and video have now been retracted and will not be reposted. On
behalf of Infowars, I regret that we mischaracterized Chobani, its employees
and the people of Twin Falls, Idaho the way we did.”
The video below features a rant from Mr. Jones followed by his apology.
I urge readers and viewers to think twice before sharing
provocative “news” from outlets like Infowars.
Note: This post is an example of satirical fake news. According to a member of the House Intelligence Committee, one of the surprising things about the communications between Team Trump and associates of Vladimir Putin is that there were many conversations about global warming and how to speed it up. There were also conversations about how global warming could affect property values. People who own property on the water will be the big losers when the water levels rise. Who will be the big winners? Investors who had the foresight to buy tracts that are likely to become waterfront in the near future. Property records show that associates of Trump and Putin have been dumping waterfront properties and quietly snatching up properties projected to become waterfront over the past few months. The global warming land grab could make Trump and Putin two of the wealthiest men on the planet.
A lot of fake news can be detected by listening for two little words.
In days of
yore, publishers and editors didn’t put stories on the air or into print until
they had enough of the facts to support the storyline. Sometimes in the race to
break a story ahead of the competition, they got a little ahead of themselves.
When they did, they sometimes printed or aired material that was not accurate
and had to be retracted or corrected. Since reputations are important to news
organizations, they avoided making mistakes as much as possible. Now, to stay
ahead of other outlets, some news organizations go with material that hasn’t
yet been fleshed out. Understanding a few code words can help consumers to
recognize when a story might, possibly, potentially be fake news. For example, James
Rosen of Fox News wrote a story on March 23rd with the following provocative
title. Potential 'smoking gun' showing Obama administration
spied on Trump team, source says.
Since moving into The
White House, President Trump has discovered that it is infested with bugs and
that there are numerous leaks throughout the structure. I would have thought
that someone with so much experience in real estate would have had the good
sense to get a certified termite inspection and a roof inspection before taking
ownership. Now, he apparently is stuck with fixing those problems.
One of President
Trump’s most consistent targets throughout the election season was the media in
general and fake news in particular. It was a big part of Trump’s schtick. Since
his inauguration, he has continued his criticisms. Why would he stop doing what
has worked so well for him? President Trump recently called fake news the “enemy
of the people.” President Trump clearly believes that journalists who produce unfavorable
coverage should be treated as enemies.
Trump’s
dislike for the media is understandable. Many in the media clearly detest Trump
and it’s obvious. Most of the media were way off in their polling and their prognostications
about the election. They said, over, and over, and over that he didn’t stand a
chance. More recently, the infamous dossier that was published by Buzzfeed hasn’t
resulted in any big stories so far.
CNN and the New York Times were shut out of a recent press briefing with White House Press
Secretary Sean Spicer. One wonders what will happen next. Will the practice of excluding
critical media increase? Will media organizations try to be nicer in order to
avoid being excluded? Will someone – perhaps Jimmy Carter – step up to help
Trump and the media negotiate for a lasting peace?
Trump Declares War on Fake New: Producers of
Fake News head for their bunkers.
“You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all
the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” Abraham Lincoln
According to Wikipedia, satire is a genre of literature, and sometimes graphic and performing arts, in which vices, follies, abuses, and
shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming
individuals, corporations, government, or society itself into improvement.
The United States has had a rich tradition of
satire. Some of the country’s most notable satirists have been Ben Franklin,
Mark Twain, and Will Rogers. The late Art Buchwald and P.J. O’Rourke are two of
our more recent satirists. Television shows like Saturday Night Live, The
Daily Show, and many others present satire as well. Mad Magazine, Cracked, and
National Lampoon have all put a great deal of satire into print. The Wittenburg
Door, which published some of my satire, billed itself as “The world’s pretty much only religious satire magazine.”
"A modern revolutionary group heads for the television station." Abbie Hoffman
"We are the ones that determine what people's attitudes are. It's in our hands." Ted Turner Although some people deny that the media can control the way they think, it would be hard to make the case that
the media don’t affect what we think about. Editors and producers decide which
stories appear at the top of the hour or on the front page. They also decide
which stories are worthy of coverage and which can be ignored.
The main stream media have been reporting a great deal about
the imminent protests of the inauguration on Friday of Donald Trump as
President of the United States. It has been predicted that as many as one
million people may participate in protests in Washington D.C. However, the
bigger story, by a factor of about 300, is that over 320 million Americans have
no intention to participate in, or pay attention to, the protests.
Once upon a time,
journalism involved gathering as much information related to some current event
as possible. Journalists interviewed people who had firsthand knowledge.
Finding and connecting with those sources of information was usually tedious
and time-consuming. In many cases, people who had information were not
cooperative or forthcoming.
Good journalists also
reviewed as much information related to a story as they could get their hands
on. Sources of information could include court documents and related articles
that had been written previously. Once a journalist had all the information
together, he or she would boil it down to the essentials that consumers would
need to comprehend what was going on.
Doomsday predictions are frequently associated with dates on the calendar, most often at the end of the year or thereabouts. Sometimes apocalypses are expected to accompany phenomena in space like total eclipses, Jupiter aligning with Mars, etc. Consumers love predictions of an apocalypse almost as much as they love celebrity gossip.
"There's asucker born every minute." Most
frequently attributed to P.T. Barnum.
“We won’t
get fooled again.” Pete Townsend
Most
people have been suckers at least once or twice in their lives. For example,
before writing this article, I always thought that P.T. Barnum was the
originator of the oft-quoted line about suckers. Alas, it appears that I took too much for
granted.
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