The Actual Fake News
America’s orange-skinned narcissist, President Donald Trump,
loves to throw about the term “fake news” to dismiss anything that criticizes
him or disagrees with him or his policies.
Fact-checking, for instance, is “fake news”. Reporters that question or criticize him are
“fake news”. CNN, MSNBC, NBC, the
Washington Post, are all part of the so-called “fake news media”. Truth, fact, reality, if they contradict
Trump or question him or even make him look bad, they’re all “fake news”. Only Trump is truth in the minds of his base.
Ironically, Trump’s biggest supporters are propaganda mills
and tabloid services. Places that spread
lies and juicy gossip with full-color splashes that are so absurd that they
don’t have to apologize when exposed.
Instead, they double-down even harder on the lies and rumors. Those, he considers to be “truth”, while the
truth is condemned as being “fake”.
Unfortunately, Trump’s nonsensical term “fake news” does a
far greater disservice with society, because it makes it difficult to identify
and crack down on the articles that are treated as “news” that really aren’t.
Every day I check my news feed through Google, which brings
me articles from all sorts of different sources. But, because I put in comic books and science
fiction as some of the topics to look for, I get hit with all sorts of non-news
articles. And, no, I’m not talking
advertisements. I’m talking fictional
stories passed off as “news” articles.
For instance, since when did “fan theories” become news
articles?
A website called “BGR”, aka “Boy Genius Reports”, which
claims to be an “online destination for news and commentary focused on the
mobile and consumer market”, touted a big headline banner that says “Mindblowing
‘Avengers: Endgame’ Theory Says Thanos Really Didn’t Kill Anyone With The Snap”. You know, that gut-wrenching scene at the end
of “Avengers: Infinity War” where – spoilers – Thanos won and the heroes lost
and we watch people literally disintegrate in front of us. “Boy Genius” wants us to know that, according
to a “fan theory”, that really didn’t happen.
Whether or not it is true we will never know until
“Avengers: Endgame” comes out in about one month after this column posts. But for right now, it’s just a theory. From a fan.
And BGR considers that to be “news”. And, because BGR considers that to be as much
“news” as the latest game release or tech product recall, Google then assumes
it to be news as well, so it ends up in my news feed.
The problem is that it is not news. It is wishful fantasy. From “a fan”.
It’s no different than saying that the Los Angeles Rams should have been
Super Bowl LIII Champions because some football fan “predicted” it and laid out
some complex play-by-play scenario where they would prevail. The problem is that they didn’t win. The Rams weren’t champions. The New England
Patriots won it 13-3. So the story is
just fiction.
“Fan Castings” are another kind of so-called “news story”
that wrongly appears in my news feed.
Much like the “fan theory” story, so-called “entertainment” services try
to play casting director to movies that have yet to be made.
For instance… CBR or “Comic Book Resources”, a mainstay for
comic book and comic book-related news, put this headline in their feed: “Batman Begins
Again: Who Will Play The Dark Knight?” The article is then followed by the actors
that they feel would be “better” at playing Batman than Ben Affleck was.
The problem is this… they’re not casting directors. This is not “news”. It is, again, a fan theory. It is fantasy. It is no different than the folks at
comicbook.com who re-imagined
“Thor” star Chris Hemsworth as Aquaman. Again, this is not news. This is fantasy.
So why the hell is this crap in my news feed?
The problem is that fan theories and fantasy castings and
other stories that pretend to be “news” have been causing real problems for the
entertainment world.
Long before the news came out that Warner Brothers gave up
on having Ben Affleck continue playing Batman, so-called “news articles” were
announcing the demise of Affleck’s caped crusader. Same with Henry Cavil’s role as Superman. Were they just “too soon”? Or were they goading the WB execs into doing
it? The CW, owned by Warner Brothers. is
besieged with rumors about killing off Green Arrow and Supergirl
in the forthcoming “Crisis
on Infinite Earths” event, which will air sometime this fall, even
though both shows were just quickly
renewed for the 2019-2020 season.
Even before the news came out that Peter Capaldi would
retire as BBC’s “Doctor Who”, fan theories and fantasy casting articles were
out looking to not only replace him, but to recast the titular character as a woman. Did that influence BBC execs in their
eventual decision to give the title to Jodi Whittaker? Was that the reason why Capaldi stepped
down? What sort of shows could we have
gotten from that series if not for the deluge of fiction passed off as “news”?
And it’s not just the entertainment section afflicted with
this garbage. My business news feed
catches the occasional “breaking news” about some future merger that exists
only in the mind of some “speculator”.
Or the “warning” of some financial catastrophe if people don’t make some
kind of financial decision that smacks more of a commercial than a “news article”.
And politics? Oh the
fantasy stories churn out almost as fast as Trump’s lies about who is “about”
to run for president in 2020 and who is “likely” to win. The
so-called “political experts” and their polling data – all of which should have
been fired after the 2016 fraud – are already trying to manipulate the 2020
elections before the Russians can do it.
All of these are considered “news” according to Google, so
they end up in my news feed.
Let’s get brutally honest here... as long as news services
continue to churn out fictional stories and pass them off as “news”, it is
difficult, if not impossible to counter the lies and propaganda from Narcissist
Trump and his red-hat supporters, never mind refute claims of “fake news”. Because, guess what? It’s there!
There is fiction being passed off as “news”, and not just from lazy
so-called “journalists” like Stephen
Glass or Jayson Blair.
Now I can understand why websites like CBR and BGR pass off
the fraud of fan theories and fantasy castings as “news articles”. It’s all about the “clicks” to them. It’s about getting the attention of readers
so they will visit the website and get the ad revenue. But it also takes away space from the really
important stories. The stuff that we
really should be informed about.
And, yeah, I get it.
Sometimes the studios aren’t that responsive about upcoming movies and
TV shows. They have a schedule about how
much information to share before the “big release”, and people just don’t want
to wait. Certainly the websites that
rely on those “clicks” can’t afford to be patient.
But the actual news services? The ones that pride themselves in their
“journalistic integrity”? They really
have no excuse. If anything, they
actually help Trump and his enablers.
They give credence to Trump’s claim of “fake news”. How can they be trusted if they spread
fiction masquerading as “news”? Even if
it’s for “clicks”, it’s still not right.
The news services have a responsibility to the public in
that the information they present is factual and honest. It is as important to them as fidelity is to
a marriage. When that trust is broken,
it’s hard to rebuild it. This not a call
for legislation or regulation, because this is something that the government
cannot fix. Rather, this is a call for
the news services and those that put them in our news feed to clean up their
act. There is no place for “fan
theories”, fantasy castings, daily polls, or political or business “speculations”
in a news service or a news feed.
You can’t counter Trump’s “fake news” slur by simply saying
that you’re not. You counter it with facts,
integrity, honesty, and the truth. And
that can’t be a “sometime” thing as long as ratings or readership or “clicks”
allow it. That’s truly the difference
between the news that we want to trust and the tabloids that Trump and his ilk
seem to prefer.
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