Some thoughts on “fake news”

 



The term “fake news” has made it into the mainstream vocabulary in these last 4 years, expedited by President Trump of the US.
It refers to the propensity of media people to “spin” the “news” to fit in with a preconceived mindset.
And when you think of it, THE News is about as hard to find as a needle in a haystack and it could probably be argued that no such thing exists. It all depends on the observer.

Looking at it from the reporter’s perspective, some background information may be in order. During my work over 11 years as a part time reporter for a weekly newspaper, I was given the task of filling one page with mostly local news in every edition, plus participating in some special projects.

So, the first task of a print reporter is to fill white space. The radio and video reporters fill time slots. And that is not always easy because news has to be found, or even created.

To that end, reporters are always looking for something to be reported - and not only that - something that a goodly number of people want to read, hear and view.
There are also a great number of people out there who want to makes themselves heard in public; politicians come instantly to mind, among many others with special interests.

The marriage between reporters and all these other people is a natural one, born out of common interests.
The end result is the news. Did I say “the news”? Maybe not exactly, depending on which side of the political spectrum you happen to be on. The news on one side of the political scene becomes the fake news of the other side, and visa versa.

It seems that we have ended up in that place today, even more so than 50 years ago.

Be it of some comfort to remember that we have been in a lot worse places in times past.

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