•

the term fake news has become a contemporary buzz word

•

the concept itself is not new at all

•

people in power have always

•

used information to manipulate public opinion

•

manipulated information to distort facts about the world and gain access to more power

•

McCarthyism

•

the way that worked is he had his own brand of fake news

•

people would be named as communists with little factual basis

•

the news would cover this, although not fake news, the press is merely reporting what a government official is saying

•

that itself is truth

•

but the foundation of the material was propaganda

•

it was a war of values which government officials were waging, and they were waging it by telling untruths and allowing these untruths to be reported, which, in being reported, were understood as truths

•

journalists sometimes write stories that are

•

entertaining

•

make us feel good

•

are just a nice way to spend a Sunday

•

the democratic purpose of journalists, newspapers, magazines, and television is to give us news that we can actually use to do something

•

so if that material that journalists have access to isn't accurate, or worse, if it's inaccurate because it is being used to intentionally mislead us

•

then the foundations of democracy are at stake

•

we can't expect to make accurate decisions based on the scope of the information available

•

we are in a way merely falling in line with what people in power are trying to make us do

•

it gets muddy when we are trying to parse out

•

propaganda

•

inaccurate reporting

•

fake news

•

doesn't necessarily have a propagandistic element

•

we see it being spread around in ways that isn't part of a coordinated campaign

•

it is often merely something that is meant to generate clicks, e.g. one of one hundred fake news sites run by the same individual

•

and some of these are quite profitable

•

that profit motive is a key factor in distinguishing fake news from inaccurate reporting or propaganda

•

historically, propaganda is a tool used by people in power to manipulate the public

•

with fake news, that's not always the case

•

but they are both dangerous in very distinct ways

•

as a investigative journalist, this trend of people labeling anything that they disagree with as fake news is harmful to me and my profession

•

my career is focused on uncovering political abuses, abuses of power, and corruption

•

journalists depend on trust, not only with my sources who give them confidential information

•

but trust with the public

•

that when they go forward with an investigation, that people know they have done my due diligence

•

that they know they've only relied on the best information

•

that they are not misrepresenting themselves or the data in the research that they have

•

so this climate where sources such as the New York Time and the Washington Post are being labeled as fake news by the President of the United States

•

it's not just a rhetorical device, this has real world implications for journalists doing their work

•

since if people have developed the habit of calling what they don't agree with fake news and so they don't believe it

•

that all news is being treated as equally cynical, equally untrustworthy, as a result we are making ourselves numb to what information is more reliable than other information

•

primary dangers of fake news

•

it's an outlet to do what all of us want to do

•

to find information that confirms what we already believe

•

but the challenge of being a citizen in a democracy is to constantly put our beliefs up to scrutiny

•

fake news isn't doing that labeling news you don't want to read and engage with isn't doing that

•

when we all do this, our culture will come to a stand still

•

we can't move forward in political discussions, with legislation, with government hearings, with voting if we are just acting on information that we want to believe is true

•

that's not enough in a democracy