"FAKE NEWS" in the era of TRUMP

One of the unfortunate side effects of the Trump era is that the phrase "fake news" has taken on the opposite meaning of what it used to mean. It used to mean that someone or some organization had put out a false news story- such as those put out by the Russian government's disinformation campaign during the 2016 election to damage Hillary Clinton. One of the most infamous was the wild and false allegation that Clinton and her campaign manager were running a child slavery sex ring out of the basement of a Washington pizza parlor, which provoked an armed man to arrive to try to free the fictional child sex slaves.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/police-man-with-assault-rifle-dc-comet-pizza-victim-of-fake-sex-trafficking-story/

(It can't be seriously argued that the Russians were trying to engineer the election of Donald Trump- not even Trump thought he was going to win. The Russians just wanted a weakened and embattled Hillary Clinton presidency.)

But Donald Trump has single handedly turned the phrase "fake news" around. Now the phrase "fake news" when uttered by Trump or members of his administration means a legitimate news story, based on sound reporting, that is well sourced, factual, and true- but one that makes Donald Trump look bad. Even when it's just video of Trump saying something wild, incoherent or obviously untrue (like his July 4th speech about the Revolutionaries attacking airports), Trump labels it as fake news. And now when Trump says something is "fake news," we can almost count on it being true.

Unfortunately, the rise of Trump has also led to a massive decline in awareness of current events by a significant minority of the U.S. population, as his cult followers have taken his lead and now refuse to accept or consider stories written or reported by mainstream, legitimate news organizations which follow journalistic ethics. Trumpers routinely reject news coming from organizations which try to report accurately, source their stories, not take accusations at face value without double and triple checking them, and which quickly try to correct the few errors that occur so they can get the record straight. Many if not most of Trump's cult followers are probably unaware that many of the reporters for these organizations came from respected schools of journalism (Columbia's School of Journalism founded by Joseph Pulitzer, Medill School at Northwestern, my alma mater's Annenberg School of Communications, etc.). In fact, they are probably unaware that there is such a phrase as "journalistic ethics" and could not understand what that phrase means if they have heard of it. Because the Trump cultists have been exposed to an unrelenting stream of lies, disinformation, and wild exaggerations, all intended to sow the seeds of fear, distrust, and hate from professional prevaricators like Rush Limbaugh (who really is a brilliant man who knows exactly what he is doing), Fox News (Fox & Friends, Hannity, Carlson, Ingraham, Piro, Dobbs, etc.), Breitbart, and who knows what else.

So now Trump cultists routinely discount anything coming from a flagship television news organization, unique in its inception circa 1980, CNN (which was attacked by Trump so often that one of his rabid cult followers mailed that organization a pipe bomb last year). They won't believe stories reported by The New York Times or The Washington Post. Things have gotten so bad that when Fox News (not the Hannity propaganda division) accurately reported that polls showed that Trump was being hammered by all of the leading Democrats in one on one matchups, Trump freaked out and lashed back at their disloyalty.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1154752797637783552

Later, when Trump complained that Fox wasn't doing what he wanted, Brit Hume responded (somewhat incorrectly) that "Fox News isn't supposed to work for you."

https://www.thewrap.com/fox-news-brit-hume-hits-back-after-trump-attacks-terrible-coverage-fox-news-isnt-supposed-to-work-for-you/

A recent example of Trump cultists being unable to accept a news story because of its source was a denizen of The Albany Chronicle who could not make the effort of checking the facts himself on the story about the Trump Administration's decision to pull the plug on life saving medical care for immigrant children previously given a medical clearance to remain in the United States to receive the care they need to stay alive. Here was his comment:

"Trey Dunbar: Your source is the same network that recently had to retract a story that they decided to air without any evidence to verify its authenticity. When your "news" agency leads a story with "If this is true...", they have no journalistic integrity. If you're truly interested in robust debate (instead of polemical trollings), starting with verifiable facts from impartial sources would probably go a long ways in proving your sincerity."

Here was my response:

"There is a wonderful tool called a "search engine." It works in conjunction with "The Internet." Try entering into a search engine the phrase "Trump Administration pulls the plug on immigrant children in Boston hospital." I got 771,000 hits. The story ran on the front page of the New York Times, in the Boston Globe, and in the Miami Herald. Hell, it was probably on Fox News. Here's the story that ran on the Fox television station in Boston. Took me 5 seconds to find it:

"BOSTON – A sudden policy change by President Donald Trump’s administration means hundreds of sick immigrant children could be deported, including many patients at Boston Children’s Hospital, WBZ reports.

Sixteen-year-old Jonathan Sanchez is battling cystic fibrosis and needs the help of a vibrating vest, nebulizer and special medication to stay alive. His family came to the United States legally from Honduras in 2016. They are part of a program that allows immigrants to receive life-saving treatments for up to two years.

But the Trump administration just changed that policy; the family was sent a letter telling them to leave the country by next month or be deported.

While wearing his New England Patriots shirt, Sanchez made his opinion on potentially leaving the country clear.

“The letter, in the words, it said that we need to leave the country in 33 days. But in my perspective, it’s making legal homicide,” he said in an interview with CBS This Morning."

https://fox2now.com/2019/08/30/immigrant-teen-at-boston-childrens-hospital-could-be-deported-after-trump-administration-policy-change/

It's going to take years to clean up the mess that Trump will have left behind. A good start will be making sure that in the future children in public schools learn out to learn- how to gather accurate information, and, more importantly, how to discover what "disinformation" is and how to unmask it. And when the right wingers try to avoid allowing their children to be exposed to actual knowledge by home schooling them or putting them in sketchy religious schools, the public will be served by ensuring that they don't receive an accreditation until they can show that their students have a cogent awareness of American history, civics, and the analytical ability to discern the difference between truth and propaganda.