Tag: Fake News

Closing Thought–02May17

Since the early days of the 2016 election there has been a plethora of shitty news or shall I call it fake news, running around the typical media outlets….and in all that time there has been a conversation on just how to spot this type of news…..that is considering that someone wants the news and not some bullsh*t that massages their ego……

Is the media being played?

Every other month, a major political event is described as unprecedented, unexpected or unpredictable.

From the election of US President Donald Trump and Britain’s decision to leave the European Union, to the growing popularity of the far right and the many outlandish, divisive statements by world leaders, headlines increasingly tend to write themselves.

But should it be this easy? Should journalists rush to cover each and every comment posted to social media? Is the industry playing a role in distracting the public from key issues? Are news organisations handing out platforms? In short, is the media being played?

Here are some views …

Source: Is the media being played? | Journalism | Al Jazeera

Recently the founder of Wikipedia has an idea on how to control the bullsh*t…..

“The news is broken and we can fix it.” That’s the lofty promise of Wikitribune, a new “living, breathing tool” launched by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales that he hopes will combat “fake news” by teaming ace journalists with citizen volunteers. “I’m not sure that anyone’s ever been as radical” in coming up with an idea for “sustainable community journalism,” Wales tells the Guardian, explaining the volunteers will help write, fact-check, and flesh out articles on a range of topics without “chasing clicks.” The site—looking to initially hire 10 or so reporters before its first issue—will be ad-free (and free for readers), and Wales is crowdfunding to raise money to pay reporters. Donors will have a say in its direction, including what articles will appear. “It was when Kellyanne Conway said ‘alternative facts’ and I was just like ‘f— it … we have to do something about this,” Wales tellsWired.

The site uses the Wikipedia model, displaying sources—meaning “you can make up your own mind,” without facts that are tainted by bias, taken out of context, or “just plain … made-up,” per the site. Wales tells the Guardian that Wikipedia itself is “not a perfect place,” but he adds it also hasn’t been overrun by fake news. “If there is any kryptonite to false information, it’s transparency,” Wales recently wrote in the Guardian. A Dutch site has ventured into similar crowdsourcing. An American University professor tells Nieman Lab that Wikitribune could succeed because it’s a hybrid and because of its “narrow domain.” But Nieman Director Joshua Benton tells the BBC that “I have a hard time seeing this scale up” and that “another 10 to 20 people are not going to ‘fix the news.'”

Whatcha think?  Good idea or just a fart in the dark?

The Perfect Spokesman

It is nothing new that hypocrisy runs rampant in Foggy Bottom…..it just has to after all it is a town dedicated to the subject.

Americans live and breath hypocrisy all this back and forth about fake news or alternative facts is just an extension of this.

Then there are those purveyors of this are everywhere but the its use has hit the popularity chart with the election of the new man in DC and to spread this hypocrisy he has hired the perfect person as Press Secretary, Sean Spicer.

He is the perfect spokesman……for example…….the idiots on the Right gave Obama grief for doing what every president has done since the invention of TV…play golf and guess what Trump plays golf and he is taking time away from DC to do so…..but now it is not a problem….why?

Amid a plethora of headlines like the Washington Post‘s recent “How much is Donald Trump’s travel and protection costing, anyway?” Sean Spicer Monday defended President Trump’s golf habits. Responding to a question from Yahoo White House correspondent Hunter Walker about the 10 golf trips Trump has taken to Florida since becoming president—specifically, how they are any different from the golf games then-President Obama played, which were often criticized by Trump before he became president—Spicer explained that Trump himself has talked about “how you use the game of golf” for diplomatic purposes, Politico reports.

“You saw him utilize this as an opportunity with [Japanese] Prime Minister [Shinzo] Abe to help foster a deeper relationship in southeast Asia … and have a growing relationship that’s going to help US interests,” Spicer said. He added, per the Washington Post, that Trump isn’t necessarily always playing golf when he heads to the golf course; sometimes he’s just having meetings. Walker followed up by asking why, then, the media is not hearing details from these meetings, to which Spicer replied by saying, multiple times, that Trump is “entitled to a bit of privacy.”

Stolid Crier Of  The “Ignorati”…….

That is only one example…there are so many more and only been on job for 60 days……

Wanna add anything?

By “Wiretapping” He Did Not Mean Wiretapping

By now most Americans are over this wiretapping controversy, especially the “Ignorati”(strong Trump supporters)….but the humorous part is the “spokespeople” Trump allows to go out and make the case…..

Some of my fave quotes from these dolts…..

Kellyanne Conway Suggests That Obama Could Have Used Microwaves to Spy on Trump”

“Yes, Kellyanne Conway just suggested Trump Tower could have been monitored through TVs and microwaves (sad part is this has been picked up and now we are getting all sorts of dire warnings about our appliances).

”The Bergen Record journalist asked her was “do you know that Trump Tower was wiretapped?” — and said she’s “not in the job of having evidence.”

Then there was Spicer….another fave of mine…..

When answering a question about the “taps” he said “He did not mean “wiretapping” (the use of air quotes) when he said wiretapping. (I like this one)

Then the president himself had to add to the idiocy……

“Wiretap covers a lot of different things,” Trump tells Carlson. “I think you’re going to find some very interesting items coming to the forefront over the next 2 weeks.”

They just cannot shut up….they keep trying to explain something that cannot be explained…..

But by all means let there be an investigation…..

The White House is standing by its explosive allegation that former President Barack Obama ordered the wiretapping of Trump Tower phones—despite the Senate Intelligence Committee’s finding that there’s no evidence for the claim. “Based on the information available to us, we see no indications that Trump Tower was the subject of surveillance by any element of the United States government either before or after Election Day 2016,” committee chief Sen. Richard Burr, a Republican, said in a statement with ranking Democratic Sen. Mark Warner. The statement came the day after a similar statement from the head of the House Intelligence Committee, the New York Times reports.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters Thursday that the president stands by the claim. During a testy news conference, Spicer refused to answer questions about the president’s reaction to the congressional statements. Instead, he repeated that the president meant surveillance when he said “wiretapping” and read out news reports he said backed up the claim, becoming annoyed when reporters told him they were based on the “anonymous sources” the White House has often criticized, Politico reports. Spicer repeated Trump’s claim that more information will surface in the weeks ahead. (The Breitbart editor who wrote the story Trump may have based the claim on says it was more of a “potential scenario.”)

Time to end this.  It all began because some juvenile person had to Tweet something that was a “scenario” not a actual program.  You want this to stop then someone grow a pair and cut-off the Twitter button to the president.

If you want this to end then maybe it is time to have a talk with the idiot that began the controversy.

Closing Thought–21Feb17

To Bot Or Not To Bot?  That is the question.

If you spend too much time on the ‘net then I am positive that you have run into a bot or something similar…..my Spam folder is usually full of bot replies to my posts….I am sure that everyone that has a blog will have them lurking about….I have even heard that there are bots that reply and almost sound human….but if I think it is a Bot I will reply in some way that will expose it…..

Yes, Bots are a pain in the ass…..I have seen all the “fake news” stuff and all the angst about the MSM….some of it I agree with and others I find just a reach at best….but I read something that I found disturbing….especially when it applies to journalism…..

When Republican Steve King beat back Democratic challenger Kim Weaver in the race for Iowa’s 4th congressional district seat in November, The Washington Post snapped into action, covering both the win and the wider electoral trend. “Republicans retained control of the House and lost only a handful of seats from their commanding majority,” the article read, “a stunning reversal of fortune after many GOP leaders feared double-digit losses.” The dispatch came with the clarity and verve for which Post reporters are known, with one key difference: It was generated by Heliograf, a bot that made its debut on the Post’s website last year and marked the most sophisticated use of artificial intelligence in journalism to date.

When Jeff Bezos bought the Post back in 2013, AI-powered journalism was in its infancy. A handful of companies with automated content-generating systems, like Narrative Science and Automated Insights, were capable of producing the bare-bones, data-heavy news items familiar to sports fans and stock analysts. But strategists at the Post saw the potential for an AI system that could generate explanatory, insightful articles. What’s more, they wanted a system that could foster “a seamless interaction” between human and machine, says Jeremy Gilbert, who joined the Post as director of strategic initiatives in 2014. “What we were interested in doing is looking at whether we can evolve stories over time,” he says.

Source: What News-Writing Bots Mean for the Future of Journalism | WIRED

What will all those op-ed writers do?

Since I am by NO stretch of the imagination a techno geek….I would hope that some of my readers that are more knowledgeable than I chime in here with some techno stuff…..

Any thoughts you would like to share?

Go now…the day is young…see you guys tomorrow….chuq

There Is Alternatives

In the last year we have had all sorts of alternatives….alternative news, reality and facts even history…..there has been a whole meme come up on the blogs about trying to explain this stuff…..

Nothing has been settled….and then I read a piece in the LA Progressive on the subjects……just a fun read…..

Once, a very long time ago, a horde of African Negroes stole some dugout canoes and set out for the new world, having heard there was good work for illegal immigrants in the newly planted cotton fields and sugar mills of the new world. Though the crossing was dangerous, they managed to make it to various islands in the Caribbean and to the mainland of the United States where Southern plantation owners graciously welcomed them, gave them food and shelter, along with jobs they could never have dreamt of getting back in their various homelands where they had lived in constant fear of poisonous snakes, voracious lions, man-eating crocodiles, and an array of other perils blissfully absent in their new and oh-so-much-nicer circumstances where kindly white people looked out for them and catered to their every want and need.

Despite the solicitous treatment these dusky foreigners received, they began complaining almost from the first day they got here, whining, moaning, and singing the blues, and sometimes even engaging in bloody tantrums in which they displayed a degree of ingratitude almost unheard of in all of human history, proving once and for all that no good deed goes unpunished.

Source: Alternative Facts, Alternative Reality, Alternative History – LA Progressive

Thoughts for a Thursday…..

Take The Punishment And Smile

WE have had about 2 weeks of a debate on “fake news”….even here on IST there has been a bit of a conversation….and as usual there will remain two sides to this debate…..those that see the “fake news” and those that will not…..

The Trump camp is doing nothing to clarify this debate……and they have even admitted that they use the term “fake news” to punish those that criticize the president……

Deputy Assistant to President Trump, Sebastian Gorka, said that the White House is going to continue calling the media fake news until the press stops being critical of Trump.

According to CNN, Gorka said, “There is a monumental desire on behalf of the majority of the media, not just the pollsters, the majority of the media to attack a duly elected President in the second week of his term. That’s how unhealthy the situation is and until the media understands how wrong that attitude is, and how it hurts their credibility, we are going to continue to say, ‘fake news.’ I’m sorry, Michael. That’s the reality.”

Any story that criticizes Trump, or that the President does not like is going to be labeled “fake news” by the White House. It seems that the only real news that the White House will accept is stories that praise Trump.

The real point of the Trump White House’s adoption of the fake news term as a weapon is the delegitimation of the free press. The White House is attempting to delegitimize facts and information that they don’t like by labeling them as not real. If President Trump and his team are able to successfully confuse the American people, it will be more difficult to hold them accountable for their actions.

Personally I think it is a bit juvenile….what can you expect from a reality star…..but now we know that there use of “fake news” is just a tactic……

Really?  Journalism is truly dead!

NO one is allowed to be critical?  I believe a history student, even a dumb one, can point to a time when this was used extensively…..and that did not turn out well.

Side note:  After all the grief the Right gave Obama for his golf games and Trump played just over the weekend and nothing nothing was said….I wonder why?  (that was rhetorical and sarcastic)

A Step Closer To Trump TV

Recently the Trump adviser Bannon has chastised the media for their constant scrutiny….

White House strategist Steve Bannon granted the New York Times an interview this week, and the main topic appears to have been how much he hates the New York Times and the rest of the news media. “The media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while,” the former Breitbart chair said. “I want you to quote this. The media here is the opposition party. They don’t understand this country. They still do not understand why Donald Trump is the president of the United States.” He said the media had gotten the election “dead wrong,” making it a “humiliating defeat that they will never wash away, that will always be there.”

Bannon—who jokingly referred to himself as Darth Vader—described unspecified editors and reporters as “outright activists of the Clinton campaign,” telling the Times: “That’s why you have no power. You were humiliated.” He staunchly defended new White House press secretary Sean Spicer, saying it was a “badge of honor” to have the media question his integrity. “The media has zero integrity, zero intelligence, and no hard work,” Bannon said. At CNN, Jake Tapper’s response to Bannon’s request to shut up was a simple “No,” while the ACLU tweeted that it will see the Trump administration in court if it tries to shut the media up. Erik Wemple at the Washington Post wrote that since Bannon “helmed a campaign heavy on deceit, division, and cynicism, we don’t want any praise from his likes.”

A few months ago I wrote a couple of posts about the possibility of a Trump News Network……

Source: “Trump News Network” – In Saner Thought

And few days later I wrote yet another along the same lines……

Source: Trump’s News Network Or Reality Show? – In Saner Thought

Since I wrote those posts another incident has occurred….this time it is the VOA that made the news…..

But it’s not the money that VOA gets that is worth noting; it’s the changes in its mandate. What used to be a propaganda machine directed externally is now going to be turned inward on the homeland. Is this what Trump meant by “American First. Always America First”? You see, the new VOA is going to be allowed to operate in the United States and it is no longer going to be run by an independent board of governors. It will be headed by a CEO appointed by the president. Yes, it’s Donald Trump’s personal broadcasting network, just like he wanted during the campaign, but paid for by you and me—we who can’t afford PBS and NPR at half the cost. But what propaganda could the VOA broadcast to people who already believe in freedom?

About now the reader is thinking that I have gone off the deep end or something….let me explain what the VOA has to do with is situation….Voice of America (VOA) no longer is controlled by a non-partisan board but rather a CEO appointed by the president…that means Trump holds the keys to what is reported on VOA…in essence he has his News Network at his disposal.

The news will soon reflect the personal characteristics of the man himself….

  • Having an exaggerated sense of self-importance
  • Expecting to be recognized as superior even without achievements that warrant it
  • Exaggerating your achievements and talents
  • Being preoccupied with fantasies about success, power, brilliance, beauty or the perfect mate
  • Believing that you are superior and can only be understood by or associate with equally special people
  • Requiring constant admiration
  • Having a sense of entitlement
  • Expecting special favors and unquestioning compliance with your expectations
  • Taking advantage of others to get what you want
  • Having an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others
  • Being envious of others and believing others envy you
  • Behaving in an arrogant or haughty manner

That’s right…..Trump now has control over a media outlet…..how will it be used?

McCain–Evil Incarnate

Traitor McCain!

I have not been a supporter of anything that John McCain has done lately…Hell he even won the first ever “Assie” Award in 2008 for his most anal statement….but the situation unfolding these day is just pathetic.

Sen. John McCain has been a “hero” of the Right for 30+ years and now according to the mental midgets that support Trump he is a R.I.N.O…….evil incarnate.

This piece of “news” from the Right…..

In the wake of the release of a disinformation dossier on President-elect Donald Trump, it has been revealed that none other than establishment Republican John McCain was responsible for passing the document to the highest reaches of the FBI.

McCain, of the apparent belief that this information was extremely important, actually passed the documents to FBI director James Comey last month, according to a report by The Guardian.

Source: Traitor: John McCain passed anti-Trump disinformation dossier to FBI |

I find this a bit amusing but sad at the same time……in this year of our Lord Trump 2017 he, McCain, is being crapped on by the very people that heralded him the savior of society back in 2008…he was worshiped and even considered to walk on water back in the day and now because he has a problem with another Repub he is labeled a traitor.

He, McCain, is supporting the same positions that he has always supported on the international situations….Then why the fall from grace?

That is an easy question to answer….he is on the shit list now because he will not bend over for his majesty Trump…he will not stoop down and kiss his ass (for now)…..

So looks like all those “freedoms” that these same dolts feared we were losing under the helm of Obama are perfectly fine with denying them for others under the reign of Trump….NO one is allowed to disagree with Trump or his supporters.

Most of his, Trump’s, supporters are apparently too stupid to realize how petty this all appears.

It reminds me of something that the English philosopher, John Stuart Mill, said…..”Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.”

The ‘Post-Truth’ Mainstream Media

Since the disclosure of the “fake” news that has been around the web I have been having fun with the subject.

There is a whole philosophical debate (if you can call it that) around what is and what is not “fake” news…or better yet what is the truth.

Let me say here…I have NO love for most of the MSM…..to me they are nothing more than the agents of propaganda….their articles should be checked carefully for accuracy…..

(God I love that ‘toon!)

When I read this article I found it interesting….perhaps my readers will also….

U.S. mainstream media sees itself as the definer of what’s true and what’s “propaganda,” but has gotten lost in a fog of self-delusion and is now the principal purveyor of “post-truth” news, writes Nicolas J S Davies.

For several months, Western officials and media outlets repeated thousands of times that there were between 250,000 and 300,000 civilians trapped under Syrian and Russian bombardment in East Aleppo. Western reports rarely mentioned the Syrian government’s estimate that there were only one-third that number of civilians in the rebel-controlled enclave – nor that its estimates were solidly based on what it had found in Homs and other rebel-held areas after it restored state control.

Source: The ‘Post-Truth’ Mainstream Media – Consortiumnews

We now live in a “post-truth” world…get use to it!

Is It “Fake” Or Is It “Real”?

There has been much in the news lately about the use of “fake” news to create a situation that may not exist….I have written how I set about trying to decide whether the news is real or not…..

This is an FYI piece……I do not expect those who “know” the facts to employ any of these suggestions…..but I had to try. So….One More Time…… There has…

Source: The Curious Debate Over “Fake News” – In Saner Thought

And if there is still a doubt about the news you read then I found a fellow blogger that has his method of deciding the validity of a report…..(I contacted them for permission and I have not heard back….but if there is an objection I will remove this press and apologize)……

The basic purpose of these ten forms is the presentation of a false picture of reality.

You could find more forms, or divide these ten into sub-categories.

Source: Ten basic forms of fake news used by major media « Jon Rappoport’s Blog – Linkis.com

I know I am probably spinning my wheels for most do not want to know as long as the news and reports they get confirm their narrow thinking….

And that explains why this country is having all the problems….no one cares about real.  We Americans will buy knock-offs of anything….and that includes the news.

All this is just all too familiar…that is if one has a grip on history…..if not then that could explain the ignorance.