‘Fake News’ Is Over, Says Fake Newspaper
JIM TREACHER
DailyCaller.com
01/10/2017
Remember a little while back, when you started hearing the term “fake news” a lot? It was around the time of the 2016 election. Specifically, it was right after the election. There were a lot of reasons for the Democrats’ loss, we were told. None of those reasons had anything to do with voters making personal decisions, or Hillary being an awful candidate, or anything silly like that. No, one of the biggest reasons, at least for a while, was “fake news.”
“Fake news” is also what Norm Macdonald used to call what he did on Weekend Update. But I’m still bummed that he got fired, so let’s not talk about that.
Anyway, “fake news” is over now. That term is no longer in favor. Margaret Sullivan at the Washington Post has your instructions:
Fake news has a real meaning — deliberately constructed lies, in the form of news articles, meant to mislead the public. For example: The one falsely claiming that Pope Francis had endorsed Donald Trump, or the one alleging without basis that Hillary Clinton would be indicted just before the election…
Faster than you could say “Pizzagate,” the label has been co-opted to mean any number of completely different things: Liberal claptrap. Or opinion from left-of-center. Or simply anything in the realm of news that the observer doesn’t like to hear…
Let’s get out the hook and pull that baby off stage. Yes: Simply stop using it.
Instead, call a lie a lie. Call a hoax a hoax. Call a conspiracy theory by its rightful name. After all, “fake news” is an imprecise expression to begin with.
The Rest…HERE
