Part of it is an audience problem.<p>We have good news, e.g. <a href="http://hosted.ap.org" rel="nofollow">http://hosted.ap.org</a><p>The problem is nobody will read it. It's not sensationalized and dramatized enough. It's not edited into a series of one second video clips with an ominous soundtrack, with an occasional clip of guys in black marching with ak-47s because isis. It requires an attention span longer than 30 seconds.
The two do tend to blur together a bit through the actual news regurgitating fake news, though. This isn't a new thing either - the Emma Watson 4chan story a couple of years ago was a good example. That was seeded by a typical fake news website that had tried similar tricks before, and as soon as the first real news site failed to check the source was real and leapt on it everyone else followed suit.
Article described a few instances of fake news but failed to give an example of bad news. After reading it twice it's not clear if "bad" means "negative" or "of poor quality."
> Even worse, the term "fake news" is now being so broadly applied as to refer to news outlets that evince a political slant (or, currently, those perceived as having "helped Donald Trump get elected").<p>> Those on the more liberal end of the political spectrum might decry Fox News Channel programming or the National Review's reporting as "biased" and unreliable, just as those on the more conservative end of the spectrum might similarly dismiss MSNBC's programming or The Nation's reporting. But we would be entering perilous territory if we started tagging every news source with a strong partisan political viewpoint as "fake news."<p>This is the problem. And the Corporate media has swooped in to fan the flames of people who are caught up in the emotions of the election. They think this might win them back some credibility in the eyes of the public or cement there position as the respectable 'real news'. Its deeply disturbing whats going on. The Corporate media and some over zealous activists are attacking the Press itself. Its simply a call for blanket censorship of the press based on some arbitrary designation such as 'fake news'.
Corporate media was pushing one candidate heavily, it didn't get elected, now they are pushing story that people somehow read fake news, on Facebook! :), implying that people are not good or smart enough (unlike them). That condescending attitude got us where we are.<p>Problems are not as simple. There is not nearly enough good reporting, analysis. War is promoted heavily. TechNews are last few years plagued by what I call 'sponsorship reporting'. Apple always get glowing reviews no matter what. What I believe is most troubling, is that even people who participate in this started to believe in this news.<p>Anyhow, good news is that we are talking about it and push for change is present. We need a lot more respect for other people views before anything can happen. This is most lacking now.
After getting a reference to a Peanuts cartoon, that turned out to not be a Peanuts cartoon but something from ImageBlitz (now defunct) that was also supported by white power nationalists on Stormfront, I am thoroughly vetting everything.<p>Get a picture > check Snopes > put photo through a photo forensic application > report back to the sender and everybody they sent the image to.<p>When I'm accused of being left wing because of this due diligence, I make sure my accusers know that I am an equal opportunity debunker. Find me a liberal left leaning image and I'll try to debunk that.
The problem is that we have no real journalism anymore. Most journalists now are keyboard warriors that just take hearsay and rumors they heard on Twitter and create a story out of it. If they don't do it, someone else will and it takes too much time to actually investigate it properly.<p>With the viral nature of social media, false stories become fact really quickly.<p>I feel like Stephen Glass (the journalist that faked all of those news stories in the 90s while working for the New Republic) wouldn't even get fired if it happened now.<p>I'm all for the freedom of the press, but there needs to be consequences for completely false stories that could actually hurt someone's livelihood.
when did snopes turn into some kind of political fact-checking website ? Isn't snopes literally two guys running this site from their bedroom? Not biased at all.<p><a href="http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/28/snopes-caught-lying-about-lack-of-american-flags-at-democratic-convention/" rel="nofollow">http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/28/snopes-caught-lying-about-...</a>