Thursday morning President Trump tweeted again about the scourge of “fake news,” this time exclaiming, “FAKE NEWS media, which makes up stories and ‘sources,’ is far more effective than the discredited Democrats – but they are fading fast!”
Thirty minutes later, the president followed that up with, “The Democrats had to come up with a story as to why they lost the election, and so badly (306), so they made up a story – RUSSIA. Fake news!”
The power of the “fake news” label cannot be understated. To the president’s loyal base of supporters, it essentially gives him the unilateral power to discredit any negative story in two words. Given that it’s coming from the president of the United States, even among average Americans who exist only as casual observers of politics, his recurring use of “fake news” primes people to question the validity of literally everything they watch and read.
After weeks of top outlets publishing anonymously sourced stories peppered with almost laughable accounts of incompetence and malintent, President Trump’s frustration is understandable.
Compounded with decades of enormously damaging institutional media bias, the temptation for conservatives to wield “fake news” in an effort to finally bury those institutions is strong.
But this is absolutely critical to distinguish between legitimate “fake news” and bad reporting.
Here are some “fake news” headlines that I can’t even link to because they’re hosted on questionable websites:
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Fox News Fired Megyn Kelly After Controversial Drug Discovery
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New Law Cracks Down on Right to Use Cash – No Crime Required
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Michelle Obama Leaked IQ Shocks the Nation
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Diabetes Industry is Corrupt for Hiding This
These headlines are clickbait advertisements disguised as news stories. In fact, if you scroll way down to the fine print after clicking on them, many even include a disclosure like, “This is an advertisement and not an actual news article, blog, or consumer protection update.”
That is fake news. It may seem obvious to some readers, but it is not obvious to others who do not spend their careers obsessively consuming political media.
Poorly sourced stories in acclaimed news outlets from the Washington Post to the New York Times are damaging and egregious, but they are not “fake news,” as the term was initially intended to define.
Stories about administration officials’ connections to the Russian government are not on the same level as “Fox News Fired Megyn Kelly After Controversial Drug Discovery.”
I distrust the media as much as anyone, and I absolutely understand the president’s frustrations, but if we continue to blur these lines between fake news and bad reporting, our valid and essential critiques of biased reporting will lose all validity.
Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
