Fake News Tweets Outnumbered Real Ones Before Election
Twitter users in swing states got more fake news than real news in the days leading up to the 2016 presidential election—and the misinformation helped Donald Trump win, a new study reveals. In all, voters in 27 states—including 11 of the 16 swing states in the election—were inundated with higher concentrations of tweeted links to […]
Fake news fuels nationalism and Islamophobia — sound familiar? In this case, it’s in India
Pro-government websites in India circulated a story in May saying Arundhati Roy, the renowned Indian novelist, had criticized the Indian army’s heavy-handed presence in Kashmir, the disputed territory claimed by both countries. India would never gain full control of Kashmir, Roy was quoted as saying, “even if its army deployment increases from 7 lakh to […]
Fox News Defends Trump With Anonymous Writers, Sources
Fox News has published another article defending President Donald Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, using an anonymous source and without mentioning who wrote the piece. The piece entitled “Trump, Kushner never blackmailed Scarborough, source says” was published Friday without a byline and cites a single, unnamed source as denying that a top White House […]
Techniques of 19th-century fake news reporter teach us why we fall for it today
By Petra S. McGillen, Assistant Professor of German Studies, Dartmouth College. German journalist and novelist Theodor Fontane. Wikimedia Commons Donald Trump appears to have a straightforward definition of fake news: Stories that are critical of him or his presidency are “fake,” while those that praise him are “real.” On the surface, the logic doesn’t hold […]
Macedonia is infamous for fake news. This woman is trying to combat it with real journalism.
The tiny Balkan state of Macedonia, with a population just a quarter the size of New York City’s, received an outsized spotlight in Western media last fall. A BuzzFeed news investigation revealed that teenagers in the town of Veles, Macedonia were making a small fortune creating pro-Donald Trump fake news stories. The teens were happy […]
CNN’s Don Lemon shut an interview down when a panelist made “fake news” complaints
Lately it seems like two little words are dominating the media and social media feeds: fake news. Ever since President Donald Trump accused CNN of being fake news during a press conference in January, no media outlet has been spared from covering the topic. Fake news became a huge deal during the 2016 election, when […]
Kellyanne Conway Throws Gutter Ball, Massacres Facts
Kellyanne Conway, a senior advisor to President Donald Trump, wants the press and the public to stop commenting on her citation of the fictitious “Bowling Green Massacre” to justify the travel ban from seven majority-Muslim countries. No. In fact, the most important piece of the Conway statement has been lost amid the ridicule and jaw-dropping […]
Trump blasts US spy agencies over Russia claims
In his first press conference since winning the White House, Donald Trump has blasted America’s spy agencies and the media, accusing them of leaking salacious allegations about him. Accusing them of practices reminiscent of Nazi Germany, the president-elect denied both the claims and that he was vulnerable to blackmail by Russia. Trump has said the […]
‘Fake News’ Cries Follow Malware Discovery at Utility
The response to news that a Vermont electric utility found malware associated with Russian hacking on a utility laptop has been fairly predictable: forceful denunciations from local and federal officials and support for President Obama’s sanctions against the Vladimir Putin regime. But reactions also have included the now-familiar cry of “fake news” from many incredulous […]
Pizzagate: Man opens fire in Washington restaurant
A man who said he was investigating a conspiracy theory about Hillary Clinton running a child sex ring out of a pizza place has fired an assault rifle inside a Washington, DC, restaurant injuring no one, police and news reports said. Metropolitan Police Department spokeswoman Aquita Brown said police received a call on Sunday afternoon […]