Fake News – Part 1

When I was younger, we had little in the way of options when it came to the news.  We had CBS, NBC, or ABC on television.  That is if we received all of those channels over the air.  In those days, we only got 15 minutes of National news coverage.  Combine that with a local newspaper and the radio and that was all we had.  That is unless you lived in a metropolitan area where you had access to multiple news sources; multiple newspapers, newspapers from other places, what-have-you. 

What a different world we live in.  We have news available to us from around the world, 24 hours a day, every day of the year, from any country you would want it from.  Broadcast news (TV, radio, webcast) and written news (printed and webcast).  Not only that, it is up to the minute and immediate.  You can get the prospective of you allies and your enemies in real time.  Often you do not even need to translate their broadcasts; they do it for you.

The cautionary tale we have had to learn, at least most of us have learned, is to look at the source of the news.  This is especially true if the news story differs from the majority of the other sources.  In the main, most of the news is the same.  After all, the facts are the facts.  Admittedly, the facts can be spun based upon how you report them but that is the benefit of multiple news sources.  It keeps the all more or less honest. 

That is why, generally speaking, in what we call the Western World, the stories are reported essentially the same way.  This may not be true with a breaking story, but when the dust settles, so do the differences.

Not so with the news agencies of the repressed countries or countries where the news agencies are controlled by their government.  That is why we generally suspect Al Jazeera and Pravda to name just a couple.  If we have a brain in our head, we know that they have an agenda that supersedes the facts and supersedes the truth.  If we have a brain, we treat their news accordingly.  In addition, if we have a brain in our head, we do not totally dismiss what they are saying either.  We watch, we listen, and we try to discern not only what they are saying but also what they are not saying.

It occurred to me another thing that Al Jazeera, Pravda and their ilk have in common.  They dismiss all other news agencies.  They claim the Western news agencies of broadcasting or printing “Fake” news.  Sound familiar?  Hmmm!  Thought so.  These fronts for repressive governments try to dismiss everyone else by calling them liars.  It is almost like a flag by which to identify them for what they are.

FOX, Al Jazeera, Pravda, and all of the rest.  I do not say ban them.  That is to give them too much respect and credence.  But ignore them on the ash heap of history that they should exist in. fffffffffffffff

7 Comments