Is "fake news" really worse than "real news?"
"Real news" is crap. "Fake news" is also crap. The only difference is that the fake news doesn't have a factual basis. But that doesn't necessarily mean "real news" is better, not if you judge by effect.
First, look at the word "news." It's a fraudulent misnomer for what the product really is which is really more like "unusual things that happened recently." The vast majority of new things that happen aren't unusual. The "man bites dog" story bias of "news" means that a true story of a man biting a dog ironically damages our sense of reality with facts. It gives trivia a false sense of salience. It distorts our ability to distinguish the important from the unimportant.
The current style of news has ruined news. Like so much else in the media, the news has been gilded to death with multi-media FX clutter and "personality." I hate personality as much as Lou Grant hated spunk. I especially hate the faux variety of personality that we now get in news writing and "performance." Watch TV news on a slow or fast news day. Listen to news radio on a slow or fast news day. You'll see and hear just as much "personality" on the slow and fast news days. The personality, the tone, and the schedule are what define the product. The facts are just tossed in as they occur to tempt peoples' sweet tooth for variety.
There's kind of a sad irony to the movie, "Network," viewed forty years after it was in theaters. Its vision of a truly disgusting, out-of-control media meltdown has proven to be quaint by comparison to what we have now.
Gripe, gripe, gripe...I know. But would some people be so anxious about, say, Muslims if we had a rational sense of proportion? Heck, the bad guy Muslims like ISIS and the lone wolf dirtballs wouldn't be doing what they do if not for the media distorting the overall significance of isolated heinous acts to our daily lives. These few monsters who do these evil things aren't doing them because they feel like doing them. They are doing them to score eyeballs on the "Islam's Got Monsters" talent competition. The "real" news.
= new reply since forum marked as read
