{"id":1899,"date":"2018-06-12T20:27:04","date_gmt":"2018-06-13T00:27:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=1899"},"modified":"2018-06-12T20:27:04","modified_gmt":"2018-06-13T00:27:04","slug":"fake-news-case-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2018\/06\/fake-news-case-study.html","title":{"rendered":"Fake News: A Case Study"},"content":{"rendered":"

While everyone today is familiar with the language of \u201cfake news,\u201d most people, irrespectively of partisanship, seem to have given the concept scant attention.<\/p>\n

\u201cFake News\u201d is indeed a real phenomenon.\u00a0 In fact, at least politically speaking, and particularly in the Trump era, most of the news with which Americans are besieged is Fake News.\u00a0 Given its ubiquity, then, we should be clear as to what it is\u2014and is not.<\/p>\n

To say of an item that it is Fake News is not to say, necessarily, that it contains no truth.\u00a0 Just the opposite tends to be the case: It is only and precisely because coverage of an event consists of some truth that its partisan manufacturers are able to pass it off as legitimate news.<\/p>\n

What makes an item a species of Fake News is not that its content is untrue but, rather, that it is true only so far as it goes<\/em>\u2014which never remotely approximates the point that it needs to reach. Fake News is distinguished on account of the details that its producers edit out so as to make their stories serve their editorial interests\u2014which is to say their political agendas.<\/p>\n

Fake News is fake by virtue of its content, true.\u00a0 But its fraudulence as news stems equally as much from the primary motivation <\/em>of its purveyors.<\/p>\n

Fake News manufacturers and distributors are not, you see, motivated by the desire to inform<\/em> the public of the truth<\/em>.\u00a0 \u00a0They are driven first and foremost by their aching desire to destroy their political opponents while simultaneously running cover for their political allies.<\/p>\n

For sure, Fake News can <\/em>contain unequivocally false claims.\u00a0 Yet the presence of false claims is neither necessary nor sufficient to establish those claims as Fake News. \u00a0There are at least two reasons for this.<\/p>\n

(1)Though a claim is substantively false, it needn\u2019t be a lie if it was made in good faith. Even the most well-intentioned of journalists make mistakes from time to time.\u00a0 Their errors, taken in themselves, should not be used as a pretext for convicting them of producing Fake News.<\/p>\n

(2)There may not be any false propositions at all in a story, but it can still be Fake News as long as the peddler, for partisan political considerations, omits<\/em> other true statements the knowledge of which would radically alter the consumer\u2019s reading of that story.<\/p>\n

The Age of Donald Trump has already provided us with a virtually endless supply of examples of Fake News. \u00a0As I write this, the President has just concluded a world-historic meeting with North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, a feat that no other American president ever came close to accomplishing.\u00a0 Because, though, the vast majority of media talking heads and scribblers are leftist Democrats\u2014that they prefer not to advertise their political sympathies doesn\u2019t change the nature of those sympathies\u2014the vast majority of journalists can\u2019t chance recognizing Trump\u2019s act as the historically-unprecedented, potentially world-changing event that it is.<\/p>\n

And, so, they\u2019ve resolved to continue doing what they always do and trash Trump.<\/p>\n

From NBC News<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n

\u201cHe praised North Korea\u2019s Kim Jong Un as \u2018honest, direct and productive\u2019 and lambasted Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as \u2018dishonest.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

This is true; but it is true only as far as it goes.\u00a0 The President, apparently, did indeed make some commendatory judgments of Kim of the kind reported by NBC<\/em>, and he was critical of Trudeau.\u00a0 Yet, unsurprisingly, this notorious anti-Trump network lifted the President\u2019s comments from the wildly different contexts in which he made them so as to convey the blatantly false impression that Trump intended to make categorical moral assessments of each man: Kim Jong Un good, Justin Trudeau bad.<\/p>\n

In reality, Trump was engaging in diplomacy with Un, i.e. exactly what he flew to Singapore to do.\u00a0 As for Trudeau, Trump castigated the Prime Minister of Canada for telling Trump one thing, while telling the media something other. Trump, in other words, judged, not<\/em> the overall person<\/em> or character<\/em> of each head of state but, rather, their actions<\/em> on those occasions<\/em> and within those contexts<\/em> within which his interactions with them transpired.<\/p>\n

Notice, months back when Trump referred to Un as \u201clittle rocket man\u201d and saber rattled with him via Twitter, the Fake News peddlers at NBC<\/em> and elsewhere slammed the President for his bellicosity.\u00a0 Now, they\u2019re slamming him for supposedly being too diplomatic.\u00a0 This most recent NBC <\/em>article levels both charges:<\/p>\n

\u201cJust months ago, he [Trump] was threatening to unleash \u2018fire and fury\u2019 on Kim and calling the North Korean autocrat \u2018little rocket man.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, he\u2019s telling the world that Kim is a credible partner in peace talks.\u201d<\/p>\n

This passage is clearly meant to reinforce the leftist Democrat talking point that Trump is incoherent.<\/p>\n

This is Fake News.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s more. The article also says that Trump \u201cpublicly muses about winning a Nobel Peace Prize\u201d and that \u201che\u2019s appeared somewhat obsessed with the idea that he can forge new bonds with adversaries in North Korea, China and Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n

First, Trump himself never \u201cpublicly muses about winning a Nobel Peace Prize.\u201d It is others, people like, most tellingly, South Korean President Moon Jae-in<\/a>, who have publically expressed their belief that, for his historic efforts to in effect end the Korean War and bring peace and unity to the Korean Peninsula, Trump deserves this prize.\u00a0 \u201cPresident Trump should win the Noble Peace Prize. What we need is only peace,\u201d Moon Jae-in said back in April.<\/p>\n

Obviously, the journalists at NBC <\/em>didn\u2019t want to report this inconvenient detail.\u00a0 To do so would all too easily lend the impression that, judged by those most directly involved, <\/em>i.e. Koreans <\/em>as represented by the likes of Moon Jae-in, Trump already scored a tremendous moral victory for his critical role in bringing the governments of South and North Korea together for the purpose of realizing a new era of peace.<\/p>\n

It is more politically advantageous for NBC <\/em>to strengthen the media\u2019s anti-Trump script by making it appear that it is an arrogant, self-delusional President alone who talks about an award to which he thinks he is entitled.<\/p>\n

In asserting that Trump is \u201cobsessed\u201d with forging new relationships with such \u201cadversaries\u201d as North Korea, China and Russia, NBC <\/em>seeks to reinforce the media-created profile of Trump as a man both mentally and morally unfit for his office: He\u2019s not just consumed by obsessions, <\/em>but with obsessions of how to make American government more compatible with the governments of some of the planet\u2019s most infamous regimes.<\/p>\n

Trump does want for America to co-exist peacefully with the world. Yet by NBC\u2019s <\/em>spin, it convicts itself of producing Fake News.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While everyone today is familiar with the language of \u201cfake news,\u201d most people, irrespectively of partisanship, seem to have given the concept scant attention. \u201cFake News\u201d is indeed a real phenomenon.\u00a0 In fact, at least politically speaking, and particularly in the Trump era, most of the news with which Americans are besieged is Fake News.\u00a0…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nFake News: A Case Study<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2018\/06\/fake-news-case-study.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fake News: A Case Study\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"While everyone today is familiar with the language of \u201cfake news,\u201d most people, irrespectively of partisanship, seem to have given the concept scant attention. \u201cFake News\u201d is indeed a real phenomenon.\u00a0 In fact, at least politically speaking, and particularly in the Trump era, most of the news with which Americans are besieged is Fake News.\u00a0…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2018\/06\/fake-news-case-study.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-06-13T00:27:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jack Kerwick\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Fake News: A Case Study","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2018\/06\/fake-news-case-study.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Fake News: A Case Study","og_description":"While everyone today is familiar with the language of \u201cfake news,\u201d most people, irrespectively of partisanship, seem to have given the concept scant attention. \u201cFake News\u201d is indeed a real phenomenon.\u00a0 In fact, at least politically speaking, and particularly in the Trump era, most of the news with which Americans are besieged is Fake News.\u00a0…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2018\/06\/fake-news-case-study.html","og_site_name":"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture","article_published_time":"2018-06-13T00:27:04+00:00","author":"Jack Kerwick","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2018\/06\/fake-news-case-study.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2018\/06\/fake-news-case-study.html","name":"Fake News: A Case Study","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#website"},"datePublished":"2018-06-13T00:27:04+00:00","dateModified":"2018-06-13T00:27:04+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/6832222998cc14717ded1849531201c5"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2018\/06\/fake-news-case-study.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2018\/06\/fake-news-case-study.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2018\/06\/fake-news-case-study.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Fake News: A Case Study"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/","name":"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture","description":"Beliefnet Voices - 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