CNN Fake Newscast...

[paulitician]

Oh how the American Mainstream Media has fallen. But unfortunately, most Americans believe anything the Idiot Box tells em. Pretty bleak times. It's very sad.

 

[paulitician]

Comedy Gold.

 

[waltky]

Uncle Ferd read inna fake newspaper dat Pence is gonna stage a coup...

In Macedonia's fake news hub, teen shows AP how it's done
December 2, 2016 — On the second floor of a noisy sports center in the Macedonian town of Veles, a teenage purveyor of fake news cracked open his laptop and laid out his case for why lying is more lucrative than the truth.

Real news gets reported everywhere, he argued. Made-up stories are unique. "The fake news is the good news," the 18-year-old said, pointing to a graph showing his audience figures, which reached into the hundreds of thousands, a bling watch clasped firmly around his wrist. "A fake news article is way more opened than any other." As President Barack Obama, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, journalists and academics argue over the impact of social media-driven propaganda on the latest American election, this sleepy former manufacturing town overlooking the Vardar River in central Macedonia has found itself increasingly drawn into the debate.

BuzzFeed News identified Veles as a hub of the fake news industry seeding sensationalized or falsified information across Facebook. A reporter from Britain's Channel 4 News chased the industry's adolescent kingpins across town, cornering one 16-year-old fake news baron who said he had no plans to stop — even though he acknowledged it was wrong. But there were no such qualms from the teenager who spoke to The Associated Press at Veles' Gemdidzii Sports Hall. Retreating from a spirited indoor soccer game into an empty office, he walked an AP journalist through the ins-and-outs of his fake news operation on condition that neither he nor his stable of bogus news sites would be identified, because otherwise that would hurt his business.

He showed the AP how he ripped much of his material off The Political Insider, a right-wing news site that produces a steady drumbeat of pro-Donald Trump pieces. He then flipped over to Google Analytics, an audience tracking tool, to show that he'd managed to gather more than 685,000 page views a week. The teen said his monthly revenue was in the four figures, a considerable sum in a country where the average monthly pay is 360 euros ($383). As he navigated his site's statistics, he dropped nuggets of journalism advice. "You have to write what people want to see, not what you want to show," he said, scrolling through The Political Insider's stories as a large banner read "ARREST HILLARY NOW."

MORE

 

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Fake news story results in violence...

Officials: Potential for Violence From Fake News Troubling
December 06, 2016 | WASHINGTON — The bizarre rumors began with a leaked email referencing Hillary Clinton and sinister interpretations of references to pizza parties. It morphed into fake online news stories about a child sex trafficking ring run by prominent Democrats operating out of a Washington, D.C., pizza joint.

On Sunday, it culminated in violence when police say a North Carolina man fired an assault rifle inside the Comet Ping Pong restaurant as he attempted to “self-investigate” the conspiracy theory known in the Twitterverse as “Pizzagate.” No one was hurt and the man was arrested. But the shooting alarmed those from neighboring businesses all the way to the White House about the real life dangers of fake news on the internet. One of those people posting on the conspiracy theory is the son of President-elect Donald Trump's proposed national security adviser.

On Monday, White House Spokesman Josh Earnest, asked about the shooting, said, “There's no denying the corrosive effect that some of these false reports have had on our political debate, and that's concerning in a political context. It's deeply troubling that some of those false reports could lead to violence.” Edgar Maddison Welch, 28, of Salisbury, North Carolina, was arrested Sunday afternoon outside the popular eatery in an affluent neighborhood of the nation's capital, police said. At his initial appearance Monday in D.C. Superior Court, Welch was ordered held pending a hearing scheduled for Thursday. The public defender he was assigned didn't immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Pedestrians pass by the front door of Comet Ping Pong pizza shop, in Washington, D.C., Dec. 5, 2016. A fake news story prompted a man to fire a rifle inside the popular eatery as he attempted to "self-investigate" a conspiracy theory of a child sex ring being operated from there, police said​

Court records made public Monday state Welch fired an AR-15 assault rifle multiple times inside the restaurant but later walked out with his hands up and unarmed, leaving his weapons inside. He told police “he had read online that the Comet restaurant was harboring child sex slaves and that he wanted to see for himself if they were there.” He said he “was armed to help rescue them” and “surrendered peacefully when he found no evidence that underage children were being harbored in the restaurant.” Welch was charged on multiple counts, including assault with a dangerous weapon. Authorities recovered the AR-15 assault rifle and a handgun from the restaurant, court paperwork said. Police said an additional weapon was recovered from his vehicle.

One of Welch's friends told The Washington Post she doesn't think he intended to shoot anyone. “He most likely really believes the conspiracy theory,” said Kathy Sue Holtorf, 29, who lives in California and works as a film producer. “He's a good guy with the best of intentions. He probably saw himself as more on a hero mission to save children than anything else.”

‘Not a conspiracy nut’

 

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Where it all started...

‘Fake News’ Was Hatched by Media in Ferguson With False 'Hands Up, Don't Shoot' Story
December 9, 2016 | Commenting on the topic of "fake news" stories and how they are exploited by the mainstream media, Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. said "fake news" was born on Aug. 9, 2014 in Ferguson, Mo., when the "fake news" of "hands up, don't shoot" was picked up by media such as MSNBC, CNN, and The New York Times to promote their liberal narrative that police officer Darren Wilson deliberately shot and killed Michael Brown.

The story of Brown holding his hands up and saying don't shoot was completely false, a lie, and yet the liberal media ran with it for weeks. On FNC's Hannity on Dec. 8, Sheriff Clarke said, “Fake news has a birth place and a birth day, August 9, 2014, when this widely held, false belief of ‘hands up, don’t shoot’ was propagated by the media. They went down there, it fit their narrative."

"Think about what happened off that fake news," said Sheriff Clarke. "It changed America. This anti-police sentiment rose out of this. This, what I call the bastard child of ‘hands up, don’t shoot,’ Black Lives Matter, grew out of this thing. It swept the country." "There are people to this day, Sean, who believe that Mike Brown had his hands up and was walking away, with his back turned to [police officer] Darren Wilson when Darren Wilson shot and killed him," said Clarke. "In fact, we all know that’s a lie."

Clarke continued, "And only one Washington Post writer had the character, had the integrity to admit that it was a lie -- I think it was Jonathan Capehart is his name -- who wrote an op-ed and said, ‘yeah, we got hoodwinked on that thing, it was embarrassing for this industry.’ And he had the courage to do it." "But to this day, no other media outlet has done it," said Sheriff Clarke.

David A. Clarke Jr. was elected to a 4-year term as the sheriff of Milwaukee County in 2002, and was re-elected in 2006, 2010 and 2014. In those elections he won, respectively, with 74%, 78%, 74%, and 79% of the vote. In April 2016 he was named Law Enforcement Leader of the Year by the Federal Law Enforcement Officer Association Foundation.

Sheriff Clarke: ‘Fake News’ Was Hatched by Media in Ferguson With False 'Hands Up, Don't Shoot' Story