When you look at the news you had to take it with a grain of salt...
The Media Will Pay the Price for its Fake News
The news media isnât in the news business.
January 16, 2017
Daniel Greenfield
The Fake News crusade began with BuzzFeed, more than any other member of the media, and it deservedly ends there. It began with BuzzFeed faking news to kick off a crusade against Fake News.
The fake news that BuzzFeed faked was about the threat of Fake News. The numbers were wrong. But that didnât stop BuzzFeed from warning that what it called Fake News was beating real news. And thatâs probably true. BuzzFeedâs discredited Trump dossier story outperformed the NBC story discrediting it.
The Fake News meme was already fading even before BuzzFeed dragged CNN down with it. The Washington Postâs media columnist, Margaret Sullivan, had claimed that the term was âtaintedâ and needed to be retired; much like her paper. Sullivan warned that non-liberals were using it to attack the media. There was a complaint from the New York Times that conservatives had âappropriatedâ the term. Meanwhile Sullivan had cited claims about Fake News from BuzzFeed arguing that âsomething has to happenâ. On the panel with Sullivan was the CEO of The Onion: a real fake news organization.
After BuzzFeedâs big fail, the exodus from the USS Fake News is happening faster than rats diving into the icy waters around the Titanic. Seth Meyers, one of those fake news talk show hosts, like Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert or John Oliver, whom lefties prefer to get their real news from, dubbed it âbustedâ.
âToday, Trump called these new reports âfake news,â so despite an incredibly short run, I think it is time to retire that term,â Meyers whined. Trump and conservatives had rudely moved into a gated media community and, as with the arrival of the first black family on the block, it was time to move on.
There are complaints that conservatives are using âFake Newsâ incorrectly as if itâs some sort of technical term that requires years of study to properly deploy at a graduate seminar. Sullivan claimed that, âFake news is a very narrow thing.â
How narrow? So narrow that it canât possibly be applied to the media. Only people the media hates.
The Postâs Callum Borchers claimed that Brian Williamsâ lies and Dan Ratherâs Microsoft Word letter from the seventies werenât really Fake News. In an attack on Fake News, Post columnist Petula Dvorak injected her own fake news by blaming Sarah Palin for the Giffords shooting. But thatâs not Fake News because the media says so. Now stop calling it that or the media will take its smear and go home.
The retirement of Fake News will be a mostly painless process because the media got what it wanted. Social media sites have put the media in charge of censoring its users. Twitter, which already had the same politically correct lunatics screaming hysterically about oppression on college campuses in charge of deciding who gets to tweet, was an easy win. Facebook kicked and struggled, but then gave in.
The experts in charge of deciding what links you can and canât share on Facebook include the good people at Snopes, who are accusing each other of embezzlement, and the Poynter Institute, whose fact checker, Craig Silverman, was hired by BuzzFeed as its media editor where he aggressively pushed claims about Fake News on BuzzFeed while cheerleading fact checkers censoring Facebook.
The media leveraged the âFake Newsâ witch hunt to get its internet censorship. Now that it has it, the term is a pesky inconvenience that anyone, even Trump, can culturally appropriate.
And so the media will strive to kill it with as much enthusiasm as it once propagated it.
BuzzFeed, which also served its purpose, is being written off. The vapid listicle site was thrown under the bus by CNN and scolded by the Poynter Institute. NBCâs Chuck Todd accused BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith of publishing âfake newsâ by running the fake Trump dossier. The fake outrage is old.
After President-elect Trump called BuzzFeed a "failing pile of garbage", it began selling bumper stickers that said, âI proudly get my news from a failing pile of garbage.â CNN, among other media organizations, can proudly buy them and stick them on the backs of their news vans and Tesla convertibles.
CNN boss Jeff Zucker had dismissed the idea that BuzzFeed was a legitimate news organization right before he hired away Andrew Kaczynski. Kaczynski had been responsible for delivering many of BuzzFeedâs anti-Trump hit pieces. His last story for BuzzFeed was headlined, âDonald Trump Appeared In A 2000 Playboy Softcore Pornâ. The headline read like it was written by one of those foreign sites that BuzzFeed blamed for Trumpâs victory. But this was what CNN wanted.
The media isnât in the news business any more than your Aunt Sally is.
...
The news media is just another arm of a politicized entertainment industry.
Thatâs why Candice Bergen, who played a fictional news anchor on the CBS sitcom Murphy Brown, was offered a spot at CBSâs news division on 60 Minutes. Itâs why so many progressives got their news from the Daily Show or why Brian Williams appeared so often on 30 Rock.
And itâs why BuzzFeed is a member of the media.
The media opened a big can of ugly worms with its Fake News crusade. Now it will pay the price.
The Media Will Pay the Price for its Fake News
The Media Will Pay the Price for its Fake News
The news media isnât in the news business.
January 16, 2017
Daniel Greenfield
The Fake News crusade began with BuzzFeed, more than any other member of the media, and it deservedly ends there. It began with BuzzFeed faking news to kick off a crusade against Fake News.
The fake news that BuzzFeed faked was about the threat of Fake News. The numbers were wrong. But that didnât stop BuzzFeed from warning that what it called Fake News was beating real news. And thatâs probably true. BuzzFeedâs discredited Trump dossier story outperformed the NBC story discrediting it.
The Fake News meme was already fading even before BuzzFeed dragged CNN down with it. The Washington Postâs media columnist, Margaret Sullivan, had claimed that the term was âtaintedâ and needed to be retired; much like her paper. Sullivan warned that non-liberals were using it to attack the media. There was a complaint from the New York Times that conservatives had âappropriatedâ the term. Meanwhile Sullivan had cited claims about Fake News from BuzzFeed arguing that âsomething has to happenâ. On the panel with Sullivan was the CEO of The Onion: a real fake news organization.
After BuzzFeedâs big fail, the exodus from the USS Fake News is happening faster than rats diving into the icy waters around the Titanic. Seth Meyers, one of those fake news talk show hosts, like Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert or John Oliver, whom lefties prefer to get their real news from, dubbed it âbustedâ.
âToday, Trump called these new reports âfake news,â so despite an incredibly short run, I think it is time to retire that term,â Meyers whined. Trump and conservatives had rudely moved into a gated media community and, as with the arrival of the first black family on the block, it was time to move on.
There are complaints that conservatives are using âFake Newsâ incorrectly as if itâs some sort of technical term that requires years of study to properly deploy at a graduate seminar. Sullivan claimed that, âFake news is a very narrow thing.â
How narrow? So narrow that it canât possibly be applied to the media. Only people the media hates.
The Postâs Callum Borchers claimed that Brian Williamsâ lies and Dan Ratherâs Microsoft Word letter from the seventies werenât really Fake News. In an attack on Fake News, Post columnist Petula Dvorak injected her own fake news by blaming Sarah Palin for the Giffords shooting. But thatâs not Fake News because the media says so. Now stop calling it that or the media will take its smear and go home.
The retirement of Fake News will be a mostly painless process because the media got what it wanted. Social media sites have put the media in charge of censoring its users. Twitter, which already had the same politically correct lunatics screaming hysterically about oppression on college campuses in charge of deciding who gets to tweet, was an easy win. Facebook kicked and struggled, but then gave in.
The experts in charge of deciding what links you can and canât share on Facebook include the good people at Snopes, who are accusing each other of embezzlement, and the Poynter Institute, whose fact checker, Craig Silverman, was hired by BuzzFeed as its media editor where he aggressively pushed claims about Fake News on BuzzFeed while cheerleading fact checkers censoring Facebook.
The media leveraged the âFake Newsâ witch hunt to get its internet censorship. Now that it has it, the term is a pesky inconvenience that anyone, even Trump, can culturally appropriate.
And so the media will strive to kill it with as much enthusiasm as it once propagated it.
BuzzFeed, which also served its purpose, is being written off. The vapid listicle site was thrown under the bus by CNN and scolded by the Poynter Institute. NBCâs Chuck Todd accused BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith of publishing âfake newsâ by running the fake Trump dossier. The fake outrage is old.
After President-elect Trump called BuzzFeed a "failing pile of garbage", it began selling bumper stickers that said, âI proudly get my news from a failing pile of garbage.â CNN, among other media organizations, can proudly buy them and stick them on the backs of their news vans and Tesla convertibles.
CNN boss Jeff Zucker had dismissed the idea that BuzzFeed was a legitimate news organization right before he hired away Andrew Kaczynski. Kaczynski had been responsible for delivering many of BuzzFeedâs anti-Trump hit pieces. His last story for BuzzFeed was headlined, âDonald Trump Appeared In A 2000 Playboy Softcore Pornâ. The headline read like it was written by one of those foreign sites that BuzzFeed blamed for Trumpâs victory. But this was what CNN wanted.
The media isnât in the news business any more than your Aunt Sally is.
...
The news media is just another arm of a politicized entertainment industry.
Thatâs why Candice Bergen, who played a fictional news anchor on the CBS sitcom Murphy Brown, was offered a spot at CBSâs news division on 60 Minutes. Itâs why so many progressives got their news from the Daily Show or why Brian Williams appeared so often on 30 Rock.
And itâs why BuzzFeed is a member of the media.
The media opened a big can of ugly worms with its Fake News crusade. Now it will pay the price.
The Media Will Pay the Price for its Fake News
