Is Fake News Getting a Bad Rap? Four Benefits of Fake News.

People rarely say anything positive about fake news. Indeed, barely a day goes by without some politician or commentator bloviating about the horrors of fake news. They say fake news is disrupting our society, or fake news is destroying relationships, or it’s hard to tell the difference between fake news and real news anymore. In the interest of fairness, here’s a short list of some of the wonderful benefits of fake news.

• Fake news helps people avoid reality. Reality can be very uncomfortable at times. In fact, many people have far more reality in their lives than they want. Fake news provides a means of escape.
• Fake news confirms biases. Nobody really needs, or wants, to see things from the perspectives of others. In a world of chaos and confusion, what people need is confirmation that they are right about everything.
• With fake news, if you don’t like hearing opinions you disagree with, you never have to be exposed to them. On the other hand, if you enjoy being angry and hateful, fake news can provide more ammunition than you’ll ever need. Either way, fake news is the solution, not the problem.
• Fake News is more fun than real news. Fake news can bring laughter and joy into people’s lives. Or it can bring a sense of self-righteousness and moral indignation. Who doesn’t enjoy laughing and/or feeling superior to others once in a while?

Fake News and the Parkland Massacre

Fake news was flowing fast and furious shortly after the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. One of the first fake things to happen was the viral distribution of a photo identifying a young man as the shooter who actually was not the shooter. I don’t even understand how someone could be mean enough to put something like that into circulation, but that’s the virtual world we now inhabit.

Was Jesus crucified over fake news?

When Jesus began healing people, he urged those who were healed not to publicize what had happened. It appears that at the beginning of the Lord’s ministry years, He preferred to fly under the radar. He probably knew that when some people heard about what He was doing, they wouldn’t be happy about it.

Still, it’s not easy to keep authentic miracles under wraps. The word got around and Jesus began to draw crowds. When He healed a man’s withered hand on the Sabbath, Jesus crossed some sort of a line. “Then the Pharisees went out and immediately plotted with the Herodians against Him, how they might destroy Him.” Mark 3:6

The Genesis of Fake News

St. Mark's Anglican Church
St. John's, Newfoundland

According to Merriam-Webster, some of the earliest uses of the phrase “fake news” go back to newspaper articles in 1890 and 1891. However, fake news itself goes back much further. For those who believe in the story of creation as presented in the Old Testament Book of Genesis, it could be said that fake news goes back almost to the very beginning.

Nominees Announced for Second Annual Fakies - Fake News Awards

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 1^st 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.

Fake News and Trustworthy Sources: Who’s in Your Newsfeed?

Brian Ross of ABC news

Pundits, politicians, and professors are all wringing their hands over the proliferation of fake news. They’re all very concerned about the masses who now believe fake news. One thing that most fail to acknowledge is that many people prefer fake news over real news. Many viewers, readers, and listeners simply prefer news that confirms the things they believe in. It makes life easier. They like fake news and they’re not going to stop consuming it or sharing it simply because someone says it’s bad.

Santa Claus may cancel deliveries due to drone traffic!

Since the 1960s, when Rudolph began lighting the way, there has never been any talk of shutting down Santa’s delivery runs. However, new issues have come up which may force the cancellation of Christmas. The air traffic from holiday delivery drones has been building for several years, and an insider at the North Pole says a shutdown by Santa may be imminent because of it.

Blogging vs. Journalism: Can you say Blurnalism?

Bloggers and journalists, living together. Mass hysteria!

One of the late George Carlin’s classic comedy bits was about the differences between football and baseball. “Baseball is played on a diamond in a park. The baseball park! Football is played on a gridiron, in a stadium.”

These days some bloggers are doing journalism and many journalists are writing blogs. Although the lines are sometimes blurred - which has produced something I call blurnalism - there are some interesting differences most of the time. So, what would it be like to compare blogging to journalism in a similar way to Carlin’s treatment of baseball and football?

When you write a blog, you’re your own boss. You can write about anything. When you’re a journalist, you’re work is supervised by an editor or a producer who gives you assignments. In some cases, journalists suggest topics, but those have to be approved.

Letter to Florida Times-Union Editor about Fake News: Slow down and smell the satire.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Note: This is a letter to the editor of the Florida Times-Union which was published on November 30, 2017.

The recent tips offered by Times-Union Editorial Page Editor Mike Clark on how to spot fake news were helpful.

However, Clark neglected to address one very serious problem: The inability of Americans to comprehend satire, which is the most prevalent form of fake news.

Fake Photos and the Folks Who Share Them

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.

Clickbait for fake news on Jacksonville.com? Sad but true.

I don’t routinely browse  Jacksonville.com because I get the print version of the Times-Union every morning at the end of my driveway. On Saturday, September 2^nd, I took a look at the online version because I wanted to share Richard Cuff’s intelligent letter about the controversy pertaining to Confederate monuments.

When I got to Richard's letter at Jacksonville.com, I saw an ad at the top of the right column which was clickbait for a fake news story about HGTV star Joanna Gaines leaving Fixer Upper and going into the cosmetics business. Having written a blog post about this fake news story, I was familiar with it.

Face Cream Fiasco and Fake Celebrity Endorsements: Is Joanna Gaines really going into the cosmetics business?

Upon reloading Richard Cuff’s letter to the editor, a banner ad for the fake news story appeared at the top of the page. As a legitimate news organization, it seems like the Times-Union should be able to keep clickbait for fake news from appearing on its website. People and organizations that help to spread fake news are part of the problem. I’ve sent a letter to the editor about this, but have yet to hear anything back about it.

Do you think news organizations like the Florida Times-Union should keep ads for fake news stories off their websites?

Are you comfortable sharing articles from organizations that sometimes help to spread fake news?

#FakeNews #JoannaGaines #FixerUpper

A Devious Question and Fake News in the Garden of Eden

When I was employed as a salesman at a car dealership, I learned that you can get someone to believe a lie without ever telling him or her a lie. It’s possible to get someone to believe a lie simply by asking the right question. For example, after I closed one profitable deal on a pickup truck, the customer said, “Dan, as much as I paid for that truck, you ought to throw in a set of mats.”

I acted as if I was taken aback. “Mr. Jones, we haggled quite a bit over this deal. Do you seriously think I have enough profit left to just throw in a set of mats?” I didn’t tell him a lie. I asked him a question. If I had just buckled and given him the mats, he would have wondered if he had gotten a decent deal or not.

Ben Franklin: Founding Father of Fake News

Note: Sometimes fake news stories are built around legitimate stories with fake elements thrown in here and there. The fake elements in the post below are for comedic effect and they're fairly obvious. The folks who really know how to write fake news sometimes use similar techniques.  However, they are much more subtle about it. 

Fake news has been around in the United States since the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Actually, fake news was being produced before that. Long before he became a statesman, Ben Franklin worked as an apprentice in a print shop owned by his older brother James, or Jimbo, as Ben preferred to call him when he was out of earshot. True story!

The shop printed programs for the Boston Red Sox, menus for Legal Seafood, and also published the New England Courant newspaper. Unbeknownst to his older, and apparently less clever, brother, Ben Franklin wrote for the New England Courant using the pen name Silence Dogood. Like the Huffington Post, the Courant was very receptive to free content, whether it came by email or in an envelope slid under the office door. Mrs. Dogood was popular with the readers and it took James Franklin years to figure out her true identity.

Face Cream Fiasco and Fake Celebrity Endorsements: Are Joanna Gaines, Priscilla Chan, Jill Rhodes, Victoria O'Steen, and the Obamas really going into the cosmetics business?

Update: Since I wrote this post last Spring, new victims of the face cream scam have emerged. They include Barack and Michelle Obama, Victoria O'Steen, Jill Rhodes (wife of Sean Hannity), and Priscilla Chan (wife of Mark Zuckerberg). Even though these celebrities have substantial  resources to fight back against the fraud that is being perpetrated in their names, they evidently couldn't prevent it from happening in the first place. Furthermore, it appears that putting a stop to it isn't easy. The face cream scammers are very slick indeed!
----- 
Since April, a story has been circulating that Joanna Gaines of the HGTV hit show Fixer Upper is quitting the show and leaving her husband to go into the cosmetics business. On April 17^th, she wrote a blog post titled Don’t Believe Everything You Read.

“Always remember: if you’re reading big, exciting news about us, and we did not confirm it on our official sites, then proceed with caution. We are so thankful for your support—we wouldn’t be here without you! And just in case you were wondering, YES! We are currently filming season 5 of the show. No! I am not getting into the business of facial creams. And No! We are not expecting baby #5. And no worries, believing some of these stories happens to the best of us. In summary, don’t buy the facial cream, friends.” Joanna Gaines

Fake News 101: How to recognize fake news and avoid being fooled by it.

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.

Now available in paperback and on Kindle from Amazon.

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.

Danny@DannyMurphyAuthor.com

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Fake Science and Aluminum Foil

When I saw a link to a story with the ominous headline below, I clicked through.

DOCTORS ARE NOW WARNING: IF YOU USE ALUMINUM FOIL, STOP IT OR FACE DEADLY CONSEQUENCES

How could I resist taking a look? I don’t want to die. Like many people, I have used aluminum foil with some frequency and I have some readily available in my kitchen.

In the blog post, I saw a couple of red flags immediately. First, there’s no named author. One would think that an article about a serious health issue might be by a doctor of some kind. However, since readers have no way to know who the author is, there’s really no way to discern whether he or she is even qualified to write authoritatively on the topic of the post.

Fake Hysteria, Orson Welles, and War of the Worlds

Like many writers, I sometimes do other work to make ends meet. One of the jobs I’ve had involved reviewing short written answers to test questions about a designated reading. The students were eleventh graders and one of the readings was about Orson Welles’ famous War of the Worlds broadcast on Mercury Theatre on the Air.

On his show, Orson Welles presented audiences with dramatizations of various novels. On October 30, 1938, the selection was War of the Worlds, an 1898 novel by H.G. Wells. The novel was adapted to depict a live invasion of Grover Mills, New Jersey, by hostile Martians. According to lore, the broadcast sent millions of Americans into a panic.

However, that lore has been debunked.

Intelligence and Fake News

In the first week of March, 2017, President Trump authored a tweet asserting that the Obama team had “wiretapped” Trump Tower. No proof was provided at that time. Two weeks later, Judge Andrew Napolitano on Fox News reported that British intelligence had been employed by the Obama team to do the deed.

“Sources have told Fox News that the British foreign surveillance service, the Government Communications Headquarters, known as GCHQ, most likely provided Obama with transcripts of Trump's calls. The NSA has given GCHQ full 24/7 access to its computers, so GCHQ -- a foreign intelligence agency that, like the NSA, operates outside our constitutional norms -- has the digital versions of all electronic communications made in America in 2016, including Trump's. So by bypassing all American intelligence services, Obama would have had access to what he wanted with no Obama administration fingerprints.” From Judge Napolitano’s blog post of March 16, 2017.

This “news” found its way to Press Secretary Seam Spicer, and it was credible enough to him to refer to it during a press conference. President Trump also referred to it. Then a spokesperson from British intelligence denied the assertion.

A Potential Tale of Two Possiblities.

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 23^rd with the following provocative title.

Potential 'smoking gun' showing Obama administration spied on Trump team, source says.

Countdown to Fake-ageddon? Is peaceful coexistence possible for Trump and the media?

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.