How Fake News Is Producing Fake Reality
"...Today, we live in an age of the proliferation of news.
All kinds of news.
Celebrity news, world news, real news, fake news.
Legacy media might not have a stranglehold over the news industry, but it has left a legacy of its own.
That legacy is one of propaganda, which is exactly what journalism in all its forms has become.
Pick a topic, any topic.
Now look at the headlines and the attendant articles journalists have produced about an event.
What do you find?
Not a “tossed salad” of various perspectives but a “melting pot” with very little diversity.
Diversity is our strength?
Nope.
Not in the media.
Not anymore.
Repeat After Me
To choose a particularly egregious instance of alarmist journalism—#MeToo and the sexual misconduct allegations against now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
To the thoughtful individual, the ambiguity of the case offered
a near-limitless amount of interesting positions for which one could have advocated:
- Kavanaugh might have committed the alleged acts, but did not recall them;
- the accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, remembered the experience she related, but the memory itself was a confabulation;
- the supposed victim misook an action of Kavanaugh’s friend for that of Kavanaugh (Ed Whelan was the one brave soul to promote a unique theory along these lines, though he irresponsibly outed a classmate by name);
- the accuser actually projected her own marital problems on a fictional occurrence with a relatively little-known acquaintance (i.e. Kavanaugh),
- etc. etc. etc.….
Now compare this multiplicity of positions to those taken up by the creatures of the media, the journalists and pundits..."
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