Mainstream media is the chief culprit behind ‘fake news’

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-bl...-the-chief-culprit-behind-spread-of-fake-news


Mainstream media is the chief culprit behind ‘fake news’


With many in the media and on the left desperately looking for someone else to blame for Hillary Clinton’s embarrassing loss to Donald Trump, the latest favored narrative is that “fake news” is so rampant it cost Clinton the election. This is, of course, absurd.

With survey after survey proving that public trust in the media is abysmal, how could fake news cost the most well known candidate in modern history an election when people don’t trust the news to begin with


The media recently thought it had its “fake news” smoking gun (no pun intended) when a lunatic walked into a pizza parlor with a gun. The incident apparently began as an internet hoax suggesting Clinton and her campaign chair John Podesta allegedly were involved in a child sex-trafficking ring operating out of the D.C. pizza parlor Comet Ping Pong. Yes, it’s as stupid as it sounds.
The aforementioned lunatic, according to police, went to the parlor to “self-investigate” the conspiracy. No one was hurt.

The media, of course, is using the incident to bemoan the dangers of fake news. John Nolte of the Daily Wire helpfully points out that the media has been totally fine spreading fake news in the past, such as the false narrative that Ferguson teen Michael Brown held up his hands and asked a white police officer not to shoot him. The “hands up, don’t shoot” narrative was a lie, but some in the media and on the left still parrot the claim, even after forensic evidence proved it wrong.

Nolte notes that the media narrative of racist white police officers (or black police officers with internalized racism) out to get unarmed black men has resulted in the targeting of innocent police officers. So yes, fake news can be dangerous, but until now the media has been more than okay in spreading it.