Horner's Fake News

One of the several political issues America faces today is fake news. Any person can go on the news and will see numerous articles stating how President Trump makes accusations that the news is fake (or at least most of it is). In Macbeth, there are Weird Sisters, and they can be compared to fake

“I am not going to give you a question. You are fake news.” This is the now infamous response from President Donald Trump during his first press conference since taking office when asked “Sir, can you give us a chance to ask a question?” by CNN reporter Jim Acosta (Johnson, 2017). President Trump’s dismissal of Accosta sparked the colloquial usage of the term “fake news,” a phrase the current president uses to lambaste media sources who report stories that do not present a favorable impression of his presidency. However, true “fake news,” has existed for far longer than Donald Trump’s presidency and includes three main types: satire, biased reporting, and deliberate misinformation. Fake news has grown in quantity and now Americans across the country are expressing concerns about not being able to trust media sources once considered honest and reputable, along with having trouble distinguishing between real and fake news.

Fake new became a popular topic in news regarding politically aligned news channels and outlets. For example, YourNewsWire is an online news outlet based in Los Angeles. Based on this website, Hillary Clinton’s victory in the popular vote was due to voter fraud of 25 million votes (Kosoff). YourNewsWire used evidence of an investigation the NPR, National Public Radio, conducted. Though the article’s claim of voter fraud seemed compelling, as evidence was to support the argument was supple. Yet the evidence was incorrectly used. The NPR was involved in this investigation of voter fraud, but only published the information as Pew Research Center conducted the analysis of credibility. Another piece of falsified data is that the investigation was not conducted as a means to discredit Hillary Clinton’s victory in the popular vote, as the investigation was completed in 2012, prior to Clinton and Trump’s campaign for office. This is only one example of skewed stories and biased articles. The creators of YourNewsWire, Sean Adl-tabatabai and husband, Sinclair Treadway, were politically aligned with Bernie Sanders for the 2016 election (Baum). The reputation that YourNewsWire has created for itself has plummeted. Google no longer supports this website with ad-sponsored money, and other accredited websites, such as Snopes, investigate the validity of news articles such as these and discredit their findings

In the article “Fake News Fools Millions!” written by Carl Stoffers published on january 9, 2017 Stoffers talks about how fake news spread on social media can actually influence real-world events.

The spread of fake news can be detrimental and life altering without checking the validity of sources and facts before passing on such news to others. Pizzagate was a conspiracy theory that went viral during the 2016 Presidential Election campaign, which alleged there was a child-sex ring taking place and the top Democrats had something to do with it (Pizzagate: A Slice of Fake News). Some believe it all started when John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, had his email account hacked. Tons of emails were leaked and made public. His emails were said to contain coded messages that referred to human trafficking and were also connected to the Comet Ping Pong pizza parlor (“Pizzagate: A Slice of Fake News). James Alefantis is the owner of the Comet Ping Pong and also an acquaintance of Podesta. One email did contain Podesta and Alefantis discussing a fundraiser idea for Hillary Clinton, but no talk happened about the alleged child-sex ring. While this ‘news’ was spreading fast, Alefantis and his forty plus employees were receiving deaths threats, negative tweets on Twitter and Facebook, and facing harassing altercations with strangers. The staff observed social media outlets and “counted five #pizzagate Twitter posts a minute” at one point (Kang). Alefantis himself said that, “From this insane, fabricated conspiracy theory, we’ve come under constant assault.” (Kang) The only people that know what is true in the Pizzagate conspiracy theory are the ones who are

Being trusted by millions of people is more than an honor or privilege, but rather it is a power of immense impact. It is a force that shapes the nation, for better or worse. As much good a journalism can create, it also used to deceive the masses and incite unrest. Recently, an article circle Facebook sites. The title was FBI Agent Found Dead in a Murder Suicide. It was published in an apparently-legitimate website. Truth is, it was a fake article published in a website meant to confuse readers. Many similar websites and articles had been created by the author Jestin Coler. At first, his motivations were heroic, trying to highlight the “failed” American government. During the 2016 elections, fake news about the candidates went rampant. Coler had 20 to 25 writers working for him publishing article after article of slander and propaganda for either party. Some of the articles published reached 1.5 million views in just ten days. Coler makes anywhere from $10 thousand to $30 thousand every month from ad revenue of people who visit his fake news sites. Despite his initial good intentions, Coler willingly deceived readers into believing outlandish claims simply because it was published in a “news

On the third, Trump tweeted “The rigged Dem Primary, one of the biggest political stories in years, got ZERO coverage on Fake News Network TV last night. Disgraceful!”. Trump attempts to show the extent of bias in the media exposing that they didn’t report a major event. This tweet has bias towards Trump’s personal agenda against the media. Additionally, Trump exposes the strength of the media’s gatekeepers and how greatly they can impact which issues are talked about.

Today we see fake news coming from high up officials. This was seen countless number of times in the Obama and Bush Administrations. Obama promised us “that we can keep our doctors” under the ACA, but that wasn’t the case. Bush did this when he claimed that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and used it as a reason to go to war. And we have already seen it with the Trump Administration too. The Trump Administration kicked out news outlets from the White House Press Conference room. This is because President Trump claimed that certain news outlets were spreading “fake news” about him. This is not good because it hints to that the Trump Administration wants to control the news. In 1984, this is exactly what the government does; they spread false information to the people and brainwash them. Our leaders do this today

James Roy Horner is Las Angeles native, born on August 14th,1953. James Horner started playing piano at the age of five. At a young age, James studied in London, where he attended the Royal College of Music. He returned to America, where he attended Verde Valley School in Sedona, Arizona, and later received his bachelor's degree in music from the University of Southern California. After he earned a master's degree, he started work on his doctorate at the University of California, Los Angeles where he would later complete his Ph.D. in Music Composition and Theory. In the 1970s James had several small scoring assignments with the American Film Institute. It wasn’t until 1982 when James got his first high profile assignment, he scored Star Trek II: The

For example, Donald Trump proudly stated that “any negative polls are fake news,” and constantly refers to mainstream media outlets as “fake news media.” To compound the effect, according to MSNBC, a leading Republican Congressman, Lamar Smith, advised Americans to get their news directly from the President because “it might be the only way to get the unvarnished truth.” The reason why undermining credibility of news media is so scary is that it reduces their ability to hold politicians accountable. With public’s trust in cable news plummeting (all-time low of 32% according to Gallup), more and more individuals are looking for alternative sources online, which makes them more susceptible to fake news, and so the vicious cycle

Fake news lead to some crisis, like the Ebola breakout. The Ebola breakout had people paranoid, they heard that some people got Ebola in America and they thought it would spread. There was actually not as many people infected than people heard in the fake news. Social media isn’t always good either. Social media spreads new quick, it can make things viral. Things go viral all the time. Amanda Todd’s video, about her suicide, went viral. It made society notice what was going on with bullying. Social media made people watch their surroundings and it also helps them know what is going on all around the world. Social media can help society.

It was even discovered, according to chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Mark Warner, that 1,000 people in a Russian facility were hired to create fake anti-Hillary Clinton news stories targeting key swing states. A BuzzFeed News analysis found that top fake election news stories such as "Pope backs Trump"or "Hillary sold weapons to ISIS" generated more total engagement on Facebook than top election stories from 19 major news outlets combined. While fake news certainly had a role in influencing the election, there were also many other factors in play which make it harder to determine to what extent. However, a very clear example of a direct impact of fake news is the story of Pizzagate: a conspiracy theory which resulted in a man firing 3 shots from an AR-15 inside a restaurant, after reading that was involved in child sex trafficking and somehow linked to the democratic party. Therefore, it is clear that the epidemic of malicious fake news and fake propaganda that flooded social media over the past year can have real-world

The recent surge in popularity of social media comes with a price: fake news. Fake news is defined as news or media that has been altered or modified. Journalists have begun to analyze why that fake news exists and why it continues exist. Two authors, Eoin O’Carroll and Kevin D. Williamson, both have written articles about fake news. Eoin O’Carroll’s article “How Information Overload Helps Spread Fake News,” discusses how the media has bombarded us with news stories, blurring the distinct lines between real and fake news. Kevin D. Williamson, a journalist for the National Review, writes in his article “‘Fake News, Media and Voters: Shared Reality Must Be Acknowledged” that the news is not fake; it just does not align with one’s personal beliefs. Both authors successfully appeal to their audiences’ emotions and feelings, but O’Carroll is more likely to succeed than Williamson in persuading his audience to try and combat fake news because the writer presents himself as someone the intended readers will more readily identify with and offers evidence that his readers will find more compelling.

Journalists should be held responsible for the misinformation they release. Fake news is a cynical and destructive phenomenon that undermines democracy. By misinforming the electorate, it contributes to political extremism and the polarization of the public. Internet companies have a responsibility to crack down on the problem. Historian (Neal Gabler) wrote on billmoyers.com in November 2016. "And because a democracy relies on truth—which is why dystopian writers have always described how future oligarchs need to undermine it—fake news is

Social media like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and many more are well used nowadays. I have found most of the news which is known to be fake are spreading hugely in social media. Recently the news was so much viral in the social media. The news was about a “Muslim migrant” who was accused of beating up a boy on crutches. This video was so much viral in the social media and the highlighted thing is the boy was claimed to be immigrant. This news was published in Netherlands where there was a big controversy in many parts of the world. But later the news was found to be fake and not convincing. Even the news broadcaster and the video poster were found to be fake for this news. The most surprising thing was that the president of United States “Donald Trump” has shared this news on a social media without knowing the point. It’s totally shocking that the person which is well reputed and known has shared the fake news without finding the truth. Because of these kinds of a crucial mistake made by such person has affected the society and the people. He mainly accused the boy as an immigrant which was totally false and unexpected. Even most of the people trust this fake news with only with the title which can bring unwanted accident. So, we can say that the people should be concerned about the news and the reality. We should have to point out whether it's fake or not instead of blaming or degrading others without real and truthful news.