{"id":288701,"date":"2017-01-05T06:19:55","date_gmt":"2017-01-05T05:19:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/wapo-spreading-own-falsehoods-shows-real-power-of-fake-news\/"},"modified":"2017-01-05T06:19:55","modified_gmt":"2017-01-05T05:19:55","slug":"wapo-spreading-own-falsehoods-shows-real-power-of-fake-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/wapo-spreading-own-falsehoods-shows-real-power-of-fake-news\/","title":{"rendered":"WaPo Spreading Own Falsehoods Shows Real Power of Fake News"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"WaPo:<\/a><\/p>\n

Washington Post<\/strong> story (12\/31\/16<\/a>) with revised headline and a never-mind editor’s note. Is this “fake news”?<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The putative scourge of “fake news” has been one of the most pervasive post-election media narratives. The general thrust goes like this: A torrent of fake news swept the internet, damaging Hillary Clinton and possibly leading to a Donald Trump victory.<\/p>\n

A primary problem with this convenient-to-some narrative is that \u201cfake news\u201d has yet to be clearly defined by anyone. Vaguely conceptualized as misleading or outright fabricated stories, it can mean anything\u2014as FAIR has noted previously (12\/1\/16<\/a>)\u2014from outlets that align with \u201cRussian viewpoints\u201d to foreign spam.<\/p>\n

A recent series of events further illustrates this ambiguity. Friday night, the Washington Post<\/b> (12\/30\/16<\/a>) published an explosive report about Russian hackers breaking into a Vermont utility company. The headline splashed all over social media:<\/p>\n

Russian Hackers Penetrated US Electricity Grid Through a Utility in Vermont, Officials Say<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Quickly, the blockbuster story began to fall apart<\/a>, after Burlington Electric, the utility in question, issued a statement saying they had \u201cdetected the malware in a single Burlington Electric Department laptop not connected to [their] organization\u2019s grid systems.\u201d The Post<\/b> “updated” the story several times throughout the evening, eventually adding a heavily qualified editor\u2019s note that the only cause for concern was some \u201cRussian code\u201d on a laptop of one of the employees. There was no evidence of a hack or an attempted hack, Russian or otherwise.<\/p>\n

Two days later, after the story was walked back several times, Washington Post<\/b> columnist Catherine Rampell linked to it<\/a> in a story about cybersecurity issues facing the incoming Trump administration:<\/p>\n

\"...Or<\/a><\/p>\n

After FAIR and others pointed out the error, Rampell’s article<\/a> was changed, but this episode shows how quickly an entirely bogus premise\u2014that Russia had hacked, or even attempted to hack, an American public utility\u2014can spread without an ounce of skepticism. At the time her column was published, the only \u201cevidence\u201d of an \u201cattempted\u201d Russian hack was some malware code that could have been used by anybody. Rampell, likely influenced by the initial erroneous reporting by her colleagues, made an assumption that this was evidence of an \u201cattempted hack,\u201d a false assumption debunked by the Post<\/b> itself (1\/2\/16<\/a>) two hours after she published. In all cases, everything is rounded up to the most sensational, most Cold War\u2013panic inducing conclusion. \u201cMistakes\u201d rarely, if ever, happen in favor of less hysteria.<\/p>\n

\"WaPo:<\/a><\/p>\n

John McCain’s Washington Post<\/strong> op-ed (12\/22\/16<\/a>) failed to acknowledge that, according to the Post<\/strong> (6\/12\/15<\/a>), the CIA has done a billion dollars a year worth of “nothing” in Syria.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In a separate instance, the Washington Post<\/b> (12\/22\/16<\/a>) ran a column by Sen. John McCain insisting that the United States had \u201cdone nothing\u201d in Syria. Had McCain\u2019s editors, again, bothered to read their own paper, they would see that the Post<\/b> (6\/12\/15<\/a>) reported that the CIA has spent up to $1 billion a year on the Syrian opposition, or roughly $1 out of every $15 dollars the agency spends.<\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t merely a difference of opinion; it was a clear, black-and-white falsehood\u2014not only had the US not \u201cdone nothing,\u201d it had, by any objective metric, done quite a bit. Even opinion columns can be factchecked; that this one wasn\u2019t, on its most basic premise, suggests that when it comes to fanning the New Cold War\u2014especially on its hottest front in Syria\u2014the Washington Post <\/b>has lowered its editorial standards to tabloid levels.<\/p>\n

All this highlights the problem with limiting the criticism of misinformation to low-rent content farms in Macedonia<\/a>, as the \u201cfake news\u201d narrative so often does, while inoculating traditional outlets from the charge without a discernible reason to do so.<\/p>\n

University of North Carolina professor Zeynep Tufekci\u2014whose November New York Times<\/b> column (11\/15\/16<\/a>) helped kick off the latest round of concern over fake news\u2014objected to this counter-objection: \u201cThere is no, and never was, \u2018perfect news,\u2019\u201d she tweeted<\/a>. \u201cPls stop referring to every mode of failure of news as \u2018fake news.\u2019 Conflation is not analysis.\u201d When security researcher Marcy Wheeler pushed back<\/a> by insisting that what the Post<\/b> had done was, by its own criteria, fake news, Tufekci doubled down<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

@emptywheel<\/a> Dumb, opportunistic jumping at sensational story. Newsroom economics. Retracted. Still not “Hmm, how about Pope Endorses Trump”.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Zeynep Tufekci (@zeynep) January 3, 2017<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The issue, of course, is not whether the Washington Post<\/b> engages in the same proportion of fake news as the trollhole websites in question; it\u2019s that when its<\/em> news is fake, it has a far more significant effect. The Post<\/b> is still read by far <\/i>more people<\/a> than fringe websites, and its reporting is met with far more credulity. It is also assumed that mistakes by the the Post<\/b> are done entirely in good faith, with no consideration for political or editorial pressure to find dirt on America\u2019s current No. 1 enemy, Russia.<\/p>\n

But Tufekci and others have carved out such a narrow definition of \u201cfake news\u201d that it excludes anything emanating from establishment news sources. Indeed, when pressed on this point, Tufekci insisted \u201ctraditional media\u201d could not, by definition, engage in fake news:<\/p>\n

\n

@adamjohnsonNYC<\/a> @emptywheel<\/a> It fails in different ways than what got called “fake news” does. It can fail horribly. But not same. That’s it.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Zeynep Tufekci (@zeynep) January 3, 2017<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Post<\/b>\u2019s misleading and sometimes outright false reporting on matters related to Russia are dismissed as simply \u201cnewsroom economics,\u201d and no ill will or political incentive or ideology is ascribed. Because, we\u2014The Good American Traditional Media\u2014don\u2019t do those types of things. A \u201cfake news phenomenon\u201d that cannot, by definition, include mainstream media is a power-serving tautology that shields US corporate media from scrutiny and encourages citizens to simply trust some outlets (we’ll tell you which ones) rather than think critically.<\/p>\n

A recent YouGov poll<\/a> showed a shocking 46 percent of Trump supporters believed the \u201cpizzagate\u201d scandal\u2014a bizarre conspiracy spread<\/a> on 4Chan<\/strong> and Infowars<\/strong> about Clinton\u2019s campaign manager running a child sex ring out of a DC pizza parlor. This led, justifiably, to widespread mockery and hand-wringing over fake news by the pundit classes.<\/p>\n

But most missed that the same poll found that<\/a> 50 percent of Clinton supporters believed the Russian government had tampered directly with vote tallies\u2014as in, Putin agents directly manipulated election results. While these fears are based, at least in part, on actual (though still unproven) assertions by US intelligence that Russian hackers leaked unflattering DNC emails in an effort to influence <\/i>the election, the idea that Russia actually hacked the voting process itself is an ungrounded conspiracy theory, and one the White House has repeatedly insisted didn\u2019t happen. But where, one may ask, did 50 percent of Clinton supporters get the idea Russia hacked the election?<\/p>\n

\"Headlines<\/a>Corporate media continue to refer to the alleged Russian hacking of the DNC (and Clinton campaign manager John Podesta) emails as \u201celection hacking,\u201d giving readers the distinct impression the Russians, well, hacked the election. This wildly misleading framing is augmented by a network of pro-Clinton pundits who, in the wake of the election, spent weeks fanning theories<\/a> that the machines were tampered with.<\/p>\n

Fake news, to the extent it is a menace, ought to be measured by how badly it pollutes with misinformation. Given the number of people who think Russia is literally overturning vote totals, this meme and those who spread it certainly fits the description. But it doesn\u2019t get the label that treats it as a serious problem, because \u201cfake news\u201d\u2014in effect, if not by design\u2014includes everyone and everything except US corporate media.<\/p>\n

\n

Adam Johnson is a contributing analyst for FAIR.org<\/strong>.<\/em> You can find him on Twitter<\/strong> at @AdamJohnsonNYC<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Messages can be sent to the Washington Post <\/strong>at letters@washpost.com<\/a>, or via Twitter<\/strong> @washingtonpost<\/a>. Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective.<\/em><\/p>\n

This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission from FAIR<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Washington Post story (12\/31\/16) with revised headline and a never-mind editor’s note. Is this “fake news”? The putative scourge of “fake news” has been one of the most pervasive post-election media narratives. The general thrust goes like this: A torrent of fake news swept the internet, damaging Hillary Clinton and possibly leading to a Donald […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2521,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-288701","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2521"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288701\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}