I am seeing "fake news" all over the place, from conservative, Donald supporters to liberals on MSNBC. I do hope that stupid phrase doesn't start creep into our language. It doesn't even make sense? Do you think it's just a fad, or will it last?
I am becoming seriously concerned about "fake news." Trump's att'y's letter to Congress re: impeachment process abrogating accused's "rights under the law"-- scorned by prominent lawyers as an embarrassment to the profession-- was loaded w/it. Would appear its only motivation was to stir up his base & provide fraudulent fodder for Faux News. I live for the day when Fox is stripped by powers that be of its "news" moniker. What will that take? Perhaps funding FCC [a puny $388million]-- & reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine?
Though it started as a "fad" [a/k/a political propaganda], I fear "fake news" will not be a passing one until legislation is applied. At the moment, "news" is a free-for-all due to govt negligence of press' crucial role in democracy, & promotion of the idea that it's just another for-profit biz w/minimum QA/QC [since 'public good' is not even a thing for the libertarian/ TP element that has cowed the GOP, which is running things these days].
And of course another factor is the digital revolution that has reduced news media to a squawking gaggle of geese looking for their next provider of bread scraps.
But hey, what are your cites for MSNBC fake news? I find their dissection of every DC rumor & innuendo distasteful & generally avoid them-- but are they broadcasting lies?This message has been edited. Last edited by: bethree5,
Posts: 2605 | Location: As they say at 101.5FM: Not New York... Not Philadelphia... PROUD TO BE NEW JERSEY!
Wow - I just learned a new great phrase - Faux News. How perfect! Thanks, Bethree!
I don't watch MSNBC or Fox News regularly, though I have seen them. I did not mean to say that MSNBC cites fake news. I had only meant that they use the term "fake news," and I hate the term - possibly because of who the originator was. But mostly because it doesn't even make sense.
Fake news has been with for a long time. Advertisers have been using it for years. We used to call it propaganda, misinformation, disinformation, hoaxes, etc.. The term "fake news is not new, either.
Now for the oldies. Fake news was not coined by President Donald Trump, though he suggested something of the sort in a 2017 interview. It’s unclear whether he claimed that he invented the word fake, or that he was the first to link it to the media, but either way that’s ... fake news. The term actually dates from the late 19th century, when it was used by newspapers and magazines to boast about their own journalistic standards and attack those of their rivals. In 1895, for example, Electricity: A Popular Electrical Journal bragged that “we never copy fake news,” while in 1896 a writer at one San Jose, California, paper excoriated the publisher of another: “It is his habit to indulge in fake news. ... [H]e will make up news when he fails to find it.”
OED Online:
quote:
fake news n. originally U.S. news that conveys or incorporates false, fabricated, or deliberately misleading information, or that is characterized as or accused of doing so.The term was widely popularized during and after the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign, and since then has been used in two main ways: to refer to inaccurate stories circulated on social media and the internet, esp. ones which serve a particular political or ideological purpose; or to seek to discredit media reports regarded as partisan or untrustworthy. Some earlier evidence may not represent a fixed collocation, although the practice of ‘faking’ news stories was much discussed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (see fake v.2 7a).
1890 Milwaukee (Wisconsin) Daily Jrnl. 7 Feb. That mine story is one of the greatest pieces of fake news that has been sprung on the country for a long time. 1917 Railway & Marine News May 9/2 Fake news of the most dangerous character is already being published in the yellow journals. 2010 Sunday Times (Nexis) 6 June (Scotland ed.) 30 The [Chinese] government denounced the story as ‘fake news’ and punished four newspapers for reporting it. 2016 Postmedia Breaking News (Nexis) 4 Nov. The scourge of the U.S. election: Fake news, exploding on social media, is seeping into the mainstream... If cable-news channels such as Fox News and MSNBC revived an era of overtly partisan political coverage, producers of so-called fake news have taken the trend to a new and distorted level, largely dispensing with facts in their zeal to generate money-making clicks and/or promote one political side. 2016 @realDonaldTrump 10 Dec. in twitter.com (accessed 28 June 2019) Reports by @CNN that I will be working on The Apprentice during my Presidency, even part time, are ridiculous & untrue—FAKE NEWS! 2019 Times (Nexis) 3 Apr. 22 (heading) Pupils will be taught how to spot fake news.
Wikipedia has an article on "fake news," and so does the BBC.
I forgot to say that, although Donald Trump didn't "invent" fake news or originate the term, he practices it a lot, practically every time he opens his mouth. But you already knew that.
tinman - " Advertisers have been using it for years." Actually I think advertisers still hew fairly closely to "truth in advertising" to avoid lawsuits. Of course law allows them to use "sales puffery," & that can be stretched pretty far. OTOH, internet seems to be a free-for-all in this regard, w/fake advertisers promoting fake products w/fake claims!
Posts: 2605 | Location: As they say at 101.5FM: Not New York... Not Philadelphia... PROUD TO BE NEW JERSEY!
Great to see you back, Tinny (as Cat used to call you). We have been a bit slow these days, so it's good to see a new face. Yours truly hasn't helped things, with both personal and work balling up the works in my life. (I kinda like that phrase because it is very illustrative of what it means.)
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