The Game Of Fake News by Paul Grimsley
The latest assertion made by the President as to what should be used as a criteria for considering something “fake news” is the use of anonymous sources, which has traditionally been a very vital resource for reporters.
Intelligence agencies protect their information sources, and this is seen as a perfectly logical thing for them to do, because when you get someone inside an organization that is providing you with actionable intel that helps you to combat terrorism or criminal activity, or both, you want to keep that information flowing.
Journalists, when viewed in their role as The Fourth Estate, are an important check and balance on those who wield the power of the government. They likewise find and develop sources with useful information that they wish to continue to receive so that they may do their jobs. Sometimes the sensitive nature of the material they are dealing with means that the source would be at risk were it to be made public who they were.
The current government is “marketing” the press as being “the enemy of the people”, and they are retaliating by questioning the legitimacy of the President. In the province of opinion you could put forth a convincing argument for both beliefs. Which is true though?
It is true that sometimes “anonymous sources” is a term that has been used to push a line of argument in a story that is hard to validate, and allows disreputable people to hide behind a mask, but this is not so for the majority of cases. Is the perception of the veracity of news outlets still good though? Not according to certain polls. How do you gain certainty? Are fact checkers any less biased, and any less likely to offer up data-sets tainted by confirmation bias? It’s hard to find your footing in the shifting sand.
This protean landscape is very good for those who would rather push a line than tell the truth. Move a news story into the realm of opinion instead of fact-based reportage and, to a degree, you are given free reign to say whatever you want. Opinions are cut loose from facts. Can you prove your God exists? No. Are you going to allow someone to tell you that they don’t exist? No. Your beliefs are important to you. Opinions are like beliefs, and they are hard to argue against or disprove because they are entirely subjective — and this is where we find ourselves. Groups like Fox News, who rely primarily on personalities and talking heads over good reporting, took us down this dead end road.
“Fake News” is not a news story that disagrees with the party line, or what someone wants to be true. “Fake News” is propaganda or more simply it is lies. Opinion pieces aren’t, just by reason of disagreeing with someone, “fake news”, but neither are they news necessarily, because the facts they deal in are seasoned with opinion.
Sensationalism and the tolerance of bad journalism is responsible for the current climate, as much as any attempt by those in power to discredit and shut down those who won’t just regurgitate the message they want put out there. The media has been complicit in forwarding the message of dishonest politicians in the past and now they are being called out on it as much as the dishonest politicians themselves. Guilt by association.
It makes a lot of sense in terms of getting your own message across, to look for the chinks in the armor of your opponent, and to exploit those weaknesses. It doesn’t necessarily make sense though to buy into the same game of sensationalism and opinion, when opinion and fact are a line so readily blurred these days.
Hyperbole can lead you to misstep, and that whole idea that people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones really gets brought home when you open yourself up to the same kind of scrutiny, and the openings in your own armor are exposed.
All the practices of journalism are being looked into currently — and this is important … the Fourth Estate has failed to do its job. Politicians and their practices are likewise being looked at, because something there is also failing.
As both establishments go through this shake up, each using branding and marketing tactics to label the supposed “other” and create a sense of distance from themselves, we see how closely politics and media are entangled in marketing and advertising … perhaps more so than ever before. A social media President that destroys all precedent in the way POTUS interacts with the public, disrupting tradition, and breaking out of that problematic tradition a lot of people see as the primary problem with government — of slick used car salesmen spinning a line. A media that talks about all the things the President and his base see as strengths as being problems, presenting a completely different narrative, but having to find new ways to do this, because the old channels are being messed with.
Echo Chambers have been completely enshrined in the culture — target markets with tailored content selling a product. The White House with one message, and the media with a completely opposite one. This the fertile ground upon which fake news grows. Liberal and conservative, and the muted voice of moderates from both parties who straddle the dividing line. It hasn’t very often been the case that there is little common ground, but divisive statements from politicians and the media have fostered a widening rift — currently the current administration is believed by its base and sympathetic media outlets, but rarely by anyone with a differing philosophical and political standpoint; and the opposition and their favorite media outlets have no credence as far as their opponents are concerned. Truths barely cross party lines.
It’s great marketing — great politics, but is it great for the country? If you are on the winning side, sure. But look how unhappy some of those winning seem to be — they want approval from everyone and they aren’t getting it.
The Game Of Fake News has no winners — if every story that disagrees with President gets discredited by him and his team, and every thing the President and his team says gets discredited by the so-called liberal media, then we have a problem. If everything the President says is a lie then he shouldn’t be the President. If everything the media says is a lie then we can’t trust the media. But we know that some things at least, from both camps, appear to be true. We can see that some things said by both camps are purely opinion. Disconnecting what we are hearing from facts, and acknowledging that they are in the realm of opinion means we are able to do away with the term fake news, and see that it is just a tactic for packaging a certain narrative. To move forward we need to stop playing this fruitless game. To truly see where we are at, and to work out where we are going, we need to be able to look at the facts, and then sift through the attendant opinions, and then we might be able to decide on the best course of action going forward.
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