The Long And Brutal History Of Fake News

Journalism is the only source to obtain information to form a personal opinion about events that are happening in society, but often is fueled by sales and viewership that often presents false reports to drive popular opinions. The opinions that are presented to the unaware subscriber or viewer can be dangerous when a person starts to believe in everything that is being presented to them. The expectation of the news media to present only facts is far from the agenda of media. Whereas, the media needs to be profitable like any other corporation. For instance, the media started the Spanish- American war through false journalism as competition between two rival newspapers. William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer were owners of separate New

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

The politically corrupt use fake media to deceive the general population and alter their opinions and views to match what fits their agenda. Another term for this obliteration is “yellow journalism,” and it has been the culprit of many ruined careers and relationships. Yellow journalism is journalism that is based upon sensationalism and crude exaggeration. Yellow journalism was a very hot topic back in the 1920’s and 1930’s and it has since then died out, until recently when the current President of the United States, Donald Trump ran for office.

Newspapers and other forms of news are very vital communication methods in the world today. The goal of news is to sell us their ideas by being biased and talking about how their idea is best. News can give us biased information although, the viewer could do further research on the

In the early 1900s American journalism began to change before everyone's eyes. Muckrakers, or journalists that exaggerated and denounced the truth behind government and business organizations, began to appear in newspapers and magazines across the nation. It seemed as though that exposing the government for the lies they told became one of the biggest fads of the 1900s. A muckraker’s form of writing is considered to be yellow journalism, or the exaggeration of events taking place in the world. This form of writing was meant to stir up opinions and cause controversy between individuals in the nation, and stir up controversy it did.

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

“Fake news can be as simple as spreading misinformation or as dangerous as smearing hateful propaganda.” Fabrizio Moreira once said this alarmingly true quote. Fake news started to be such a big trend that it was coined as yellow journalism. The Spanish American war was ultimately started by yellow journalism.

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 September 10th, Katie Sanders from PunditFact and former writer from Politifact Florida gave a speech at the Bob Graham Center titled Pants on Fire: Misinformation in American Politics. The talk and subsequent Q&A centered on the perpetuation of misinformation that is experienced in contemporary American politics as well as what journalists and common people alike can do to combat it. Though these were the focal points, three related tangents were my main takeaway from the experience.

News reporting in the United States has moved and developed through several successive periods. It begins in the early stages of American history during the colonial period where news was not nearly as important as it is today. We have seen news reporting in the Party Press Era where politics heavily influenced newspaper content. News then reached a greater audience with the establishment of the Penny Press, which also created more relevant newspaper content. In the late 1800s, news reporting in the United States experienced over-dramatization and sensationalism during the Yellow Journalism period.

There are newspapers (such as the “National Enquirer”) renowned for their fictitious (although admittedly attention-grabbing) headlines, yet we hardly hesitate to assume the information is fabricated. On the other hand, when our trusted news sources present their stories, many automatically assume the information is true, which is why “[e]rroneous reporting by established organizations is a bigger threat than

Few weeks before the 2016 presidential election, the rumor that Hillary Clinton and her supporters are related to the child-trafficking crime, which takes place at the pizza place “Comet Ping Pong”, spread fast on the Internet. Despite the effort of the press to disclose the truth, the conspiracy theory snowballed its size with the support of fake evidence in the social media, which ended up causing a North Carolina man shooting at the restaurant for the investigation. (Aisch et al.)

Yellow journalism was a major issue in the late 1890s during the Spanish-American War. The purpose of yellow journalism is to use headlines and report sensational events that draws the attention of the audience in order to sell more newspapers, even if the facts used were not legitimate. Yellow journalism came to an end with the development of objective journalism, which reports facts that are not biased. With the rise of social media, yellow journalism and “fake news” are making a comeback and becoming a “norm” in modern society. The rise of social media is contributing to the amount of yellow journalism and fake news that is occurring, which is ultimately leading to party polarization.

As the world evolves and changes due to the explosion of technology, so does mankind's ways of intellectual comprehension of informative news. The present day of news has overemphasized the meaning of fake news; which represents any form of false information that is illustrated as factual news. That tends to spread throughout the internet and the media. Misinformed news has taken over the world in so many ways, such as the birth of satirical and sketchy news, the financial motivation to publish actual false news, and difficult to sustain news.

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.