Real Fake News

The WORDmeister sez: Many of us — hell, anyone drawing breath — have complained since the start of the Drumpfobscene Era about all the free press the man gets. He’s a canny media manipulator, because Cheetohead knows that if he sneezes or pharts or Tweets that there are cows on Pluto, the press just has to report it . . . because he’s president and Leader of the Free World. By definition, that’s news. 

As Politico points out, many news organization are “still reflexively amplifying his remarks even after he’s made 6,400 false or misleading claims in office.”

But there *is* some push-back. Like last week, when the Tweeter-in-Chief announced exactly the opposite of what happened in the Cohen and Manafort legal filings. When NBC retweeted the false Trump tweet, a few whistles sounded. So maybe there’s hope.

“If this isn’t true (it’s not), a news organization should not be repeating it uncritically,” responded New York Times TV critic James Poniewozik. ASU journalism professor Dan Gillmor called the NBC tweet “journalistic malpractice.” And Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) accused NBC of becoming “a vector for an [obvious] lie.”

—“Morning Media” on Politico.com, Dec. 10, 2018.

• Editorial Comment: Wait. Cows on Pluto?




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Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard