Fake News

Trump biggest lie is his repeated use of the term 'fake news' to refute negative stories about him. I have written about this previously but two items that I saw today need to be shared with my readers. First, the front page story in the New York Times that chronicles and simplifies the story of the Russian interference with the 2016 election. Trump has called this story a fake repeatedly. He has called the investigation of the story a witch hunt. He has presented no evidence that either of these allegations are true. He uses an old technique; if you say it often and loud enough people start thinking its true - until you go to court.

The New York Times article can be found at:  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/09/20/us/politics/russia-interference-election-trump-clinton.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

This article is long. Most of the names we have read about in the ongoing coverage of this issue appear and their roles explained. Beginning in 2014 the Russian began gathering data about American social unrest, conservative and liberal points of irritation, and the ability of social media to amplify quickly and freely divisive slogans. Using hundreds of English speaking internet savvy hackers, they attempted to rally the right to vote for their chosen candidate, Donald Trump. And, as the article clearly outlines, they interacted many times with his campaign to effect the same outcome. Whether they influenced the election enough to get Trump elected will never be known but this illegal effort was made.

Trump will say that this is all an elaborate fake story by the far left wing news organization, the New York Times. In my last blog I said that my feeling was that the NYTs was close to center but seemed far left because it uses facts and rational argument to support its opinions rather than shouts and insults like Fox News. It is so much easier to call someone a name than to explicate the reason why they are a bad person and give evidence to support it.

In response to my blog I received a link to the chart below. It is from Ad Fontes Media (https://www.adfontesmedia.com/) , a website that rates news organizations for bias and validity. This site takes no advertising and appears to be a neutral observer. Here is the chart.


The New York Times lies just a little to the left (this is because it uses rational thought and facts - a Democratic foible) and high on the scale of 'fact reporting'. I was happy to see Bloomberg even higher and more neutral since I read frequently and agree with this assessment.

Please speak up against Trump's rants about fake news. We cannot let our journalists down. As informal as it is, the Fourth Estate supports our freedom to know. As the subtitle on the banner of the Washington Post says - Democracy Dies in Darkness. Trump is attempting to turn off the lights.

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