The Big Money Behind Fake News (Greenfield)

[corbe]

The Big Money Behind Fake News

What really powers the media’s fake news scandal machine.

May 26, 2017
 
Daniel Greenfield
 
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on the radical left and Islamic terrorism.

Fake news is profitable.

The New York Times hit piece on the Comey memo earned the paper its most concurrent readers per second. Pretty good for a piece about a piece of paper that the leftist paper had never even seen and which was, supposedly, described to it by one of Comey’s associates.

But that didn’t stop it from racking up over 6 million views.

Media fake news isn’t just an agenda. It’s enormously profitable. Hit pieces powered by anonymous sources bring in over 100,000 readers in an age when live is king. For individual reporters, finding a source, real or fake, that can back up the left’s Trump conspiracy theories can put them on the map. 

The Comey story comes from Michael Schmidt who made a name by supposedly finding documents relating to media claims of a “Haditha Massacre” in a Baghdad junkyard where “an attendant was burning them as fuel to cook a dinner of smoked carp.” It was dashing and also very convenient.

The claims didn’t hold up in court. Most of the Marine heroes who were dragged through the mud over Haditha had their cases dropped. One case dragged out and ultimately came out to very little. But the New York Times cashed in. And Schmidt did much better out of it than Cpl. Stephen Tatum.

Haditha was the Times’ discount version of Mai Lai. Now in a desperate effort to reclaim the glory days of the media left, the New York Times and the Washington Post are trying to recreate Watergate.

It’s no coincidence that many of the big vital hit pieces aimed at President Trump have come out of the Washington Post. At the end of last year, the paper owned by Amazon boss Jeff Bezos went on a hiring spree. The goal was “quick turnaround investigative reporting”.

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http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/266808/big-money-behind-fake-news-daniel-greenfield?utm_content=social&utm_medium=@federalists_usa&utm_source=thenewamericana.com&utm_campaign=thefederalistparty.org

[berdie]

At some point in time, the news became entertainment instead of what it was intended for.

I don't know when this happened, probably before I came along. With the 24/7 news coverage the competition is fierce...so they lie.

[Hondo69]

As people increasingly make the connection between Bezos and the Post they are ditching their Amazon subscriptions (and purchases).

[Cripplecreek]

At some point in time, the news became entertainment instead of what it was intended for.

I don't know when this happened, probably before I came along. With the 24/7 news coverage the competition is fierce...so they lie.

No.

The media has always been this way. In the days of the town crier they read what was handed to them and they knew that the last town crier who wasn't enthusiastic enough about the king's decree was no longer attached to his head.

Over 200 years ago Thomas Jefferson was constantly battling the press but at the end of the day he blamed the people most of all because they want to be told what they want to hear.

To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted so as to be most useful, I should answer ‘by restraining it to true facts & sound principles only.’ yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. it is a melancholy truth that a suppression of the press could not more compleatly deprive the nation of it’s benefits, than is done by it’s abandoned prostitution to falsehood. nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. the real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knolege with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time: whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. general facts may indeed be collected from them, such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great portion of Europe to his will &c &c. but no details can be relied on. I will add that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. he who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false.

Perhaps an editor might begin a reformation in some such way as this. divide his paper into 4. chapters, heading the 1st. Truths. 2d. Probabilities. 3d. Possibilities. 4th. Lies. the 1st. chapter would be very short, as it would contain little more than authentic papers, and information from such sources as the editor would be willing to risk his own reputation for their truth. the 2d. would contain what, from a mature consideration of all circumstances, his judgment should conclude to be probably true. this however should rather contain too little than too much. the 3d. & 4th. should be professedly for those readers who would rather have lies for their money than the blank paper they would occupy.

Such an editor too would have to set his face against the demoralising practice of feeding the public mind habitually on slander, & the depravity of taste which this nauseous aliment induces. defamation is becoming a necessary of life: insomuch that a dish of tea, in the morning or evening, cannot be digested without this stimulant. even those who do not believe these abominations, still read them with complacence to their auditors, and, instead of the abhorrence & indignation which should fill a virtuous mind, betray a secret pleasure in the possibility that some may believe them, tho they do not themselves. it seems to escape them that it is not he who prints, but he who pays for printing a slander, who is it’s real author.

Thomas Jefferson writing to John Norvell.

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/99-01-02-5737

The simple fact is that those screaming loudest about "fake news" are just as dishonest.

[berdie]

No.

The media has always been this way. In the days of the town crier they read what was handed to them and they knew that the last town crier who wasn't enthusiastic enough about the king's decree was no longer attached to his head.

Over 200 years ago Thomas Jefferson was constantly battling the press but at the end of the day he blamed the people most of all because they want to be told what they want to hear.

To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted so as to be most useful, I should answer ‘by restraining it to true facts & sound principles only.’ yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. it is a melancholy truth that a suppression of the press could not more compleatly deprive the nation of it’s benefits, than is done by it’s abandoned prostitution to falsehood. nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. the real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knolege with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time: whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. general facts may indeed be collected from them, such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great portion of Europe to his will &c &c. but no details can be relied on. I will add that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. he who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false.

Perhaps an editor might begin a reformation in some such way as this. divide his paper into 4. chapters, heading the 1st. Truths. 2d. Probabilities. 3d. Possibilities. 4th. Lies. the 1st. chapter would be very short, as it would contain little more than authentic papers, and information from such sources as the editor would be willing to risk his own reputation for their truth. the 2d. would contain what, from a mature consideration of all circumstances, his judgment should conclude to be probably true. this however should rather contain too little than too much. the 3d. & 4th. should be professedly for those readers who would rather have lies for their money than the blank paper they would occupy.

Such an editor too would have to set his face against the demoralising practice of feeding the public mind habitually on slander, & the depravity of taste which this nauseous aliment induces. defamation is becoming a necessary of life: insomuch that a dish of tea, in the morning or evening, cannot be digested without this stimulant. even those who do not believe these abominations, still read them with complacence to their auditors, and, instead of the abhorrence & indignation which should fill a virtuous mind, betray a secret pleasure in the possibility that some may believe them, tho they do not themselves. it seems to escape them that it is not he who prints, but he who pays for printing a slander, who is it’s real author.

Thomas Jefferson writing to John Norvell.

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/99-01-02-5737

The simple fact is that those screaming loudest about "fake news" are just as dishonest.

Your analogy with the town crier and today's news is on point, I must agree.  The town  crier didn't have a wide audience like the 24/7 coverage of today or people would have been just as guilty of listening with baited breath.  Any time there is a story of note today, be it natural disaster or political, it seems to be turned into a soap opera by the media. Ratings matter as much as the town crier getting beheaded I guess. ^-^

[Hondo69]

Sports news seems to be following a similar trend.  The more outrageous the better.

It's worth paying attention to because they fall somewhere between business news and political news and act as a barometer of sorts.  Business news needs to be accurate for the simple reason there are dire consequences for dealing in shoddy information.  Political news is all BS all the time.  The middle ground is occupied by national sports news in that the product must be mostly accurate but there is still plenty of wiggle room to add some spice to the recipe.

Some shows covering sports are pure opinion and they've always been a bit out there.  These differ from news shows covering sports that must toe the line more closely.  But lately the two are melding together a bit too much in some cases and when that occurs they suffer a backlash from their viewers/readers.  There is a bit of a feeling out process going on right now to find the right balance, the Goldilocks mix of facts and opinion.

In a general sense sporting news is trending towards the more outrageous and you have to look behind the scenes to discover the "why".  For example, Disney-owned ESPN has seen their numbers of subscribers fall off a cliff.  Viewers don't want Disney's left-wing politics mixed in with updates on baseball scores.  So they tune out.

It will be interesting to watch the sports barometer adjust over the next few years as we face a political world that is guaranteed to become increasingly volatile.