DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Fake News sites

http://nymag.com/selectall/2016/11/fake-facebook-news-sites-to-avoid.html

{quote]

As Facebook and now Google face scrutiny for promoting fake news stories, Melissa Zimdars, a communication and media professor from Merrimack College in Massachusetts, has compiled a handy list of websites you should think twice about trusting. “Below is a list of fake, false, regularly misleading, and otherwise questionable ‘news’ organizations that are commonly shared on Facebook and other social media sites,” Zimdars explains. “Many of these websites rely on ‘outrage’ by using distorted headlines and decontextualized or dubious information in order to generate likes, shares, and profits.” (Click here to see the list.)

Be warned: Zimdars’s list is expansive in scope, and stretches beyond the bootleg sites (many of them headquartered in Macedonia) that write fake news for the sole reason of selling advertisements. Right-wing sources and conspiracy theorists like Breitbart and Infowars appear alongside pure (but often misinterpreted) satire like the Onion and The New Yorker’s Borowitz Report. “Not all of these sources are always or inherently problematic, but I’m including them because they should be considered in conjunction with other news/info sources due to their tendency to rely on clickbait headlines,” Zimdars notes. You should read it closely, feel free to disagree, and, in the spirit of media literacy, do your own research.

She also includes some helpful tips for spotting fake news:

• Watch out if known/reputable news sites are not also reporting on the story. Sometimes lack of coverage is the result of corporate media bias and other factors, but there should typically be more than one source reporting on a topic or event.

• Odd domain names generally equal odd and rarely truthful news. […]

• If the story makes you REALLY ANGRY it’s probably a good idea to keep reading about the topic via other sources to make sure the story you read wasn’t purposefully trying to make you angry (with potentially misleading or false information) in order to generate shares and ad revenue.

All sound advice before you fuel the fire further and share a bogus story about a tryst between Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin or announce that Donald Trump won the popular vote. Read the entire list here. [/quote]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/10eA5-mCZLSS4MQY5QGb5ewC3VAL6pLkT53V_81ZyitM/preview



for some reason, it won't let me copy and paste the list.

Ask yourself, how many of these sites did you see and read articles from that may have influenced you in one way or the other?

They don't influence me really; I can see that they're fake within 2 seconds. But, they're very annoying, and IMO, should not be permitted.

Food for thought and actually quite disconcerting and scary. However, the irony is...one media company (NY Mag) listing other media outlets as fake/false/lying. Who is to say the accusing media isn't putting out false/fake info too or, even their list being false? You cannot believe everything you read (not saying it too is false...just turning the spotlight on it as well).

Honestly, for all the good the internet brings it also opens an Orwellian can of worms. I do sometimes feel like 21st century America is dangerously close to what we read in the dystopian futuristic novel, '1984'.

That goes for the mainstream media as well. The only difference is that they have years of practice to make it look more convincing.

You just have to read from a lot of different sources and try to figure out what's true and what's not. Even then, it's way too easy for media organisation to bend the truth, withhold details or spin whatever facts are out there to suit whatever narrative they are trying to sell.

Agreed.

Imagine the English or History teachers job when going through students cited sources on their research papers? Wikipedia was once the public enemy #1 untrusted source now there hundreds if not thousands. It is a full time job to keep up with them but, also to decipher what you believe to be the truth and what isn't.

My wife and I watched an episode of "The Flash" last night. In the show, the Editor of the paper that one of the characters works at was trying to push a narrative about how The Flash was really the enemy and wanted the character to write a story about that, despite what she really knew.

Sadly, I feel like that's how the real media works these days. It's: "Here's the agenda we want to push. Now go out and find anything that we can maybe twist to fit that story-line." Rather than report actual facts from all angles.

Unfortunately this isn't anything new it's just more visible. In the 70's I worked at our local CBS station as a camera operator. That newsroom was just as filled with agenda driven reporting as we see today. The only difference is we only had 3 local stations, 3 network news casts and your newspaper.

Trump Declared Wisest President in History

ww!.40say.com

"ww!.40say.com- the ground-breaking news site with a subscriber base of over 1 followers..."

But if you look at the "Likes" you can see I have already tripled my ad revenues!

The fastest growing news site in the nation!

Democrat Party calls it quits. Says that all donors should contribute to Republicans from now on.

Bill blames Hillary for ruining his Party, and driving it into near non-existence in 60% of states, says reporter Mercy Bigbosoms. Clinton then asked Bigbosoms to a ..... private interview .....after answering this question.

www.thenewsaccordingtoytown.com

I get all my news from chain e-mails. All of the mainstream media gets drowned in liberal, and communist drivel.

As a green, I get all of my news through Crystals.

You don't use any Facebook memes?

OK, so where did you get the information that the main stream media is less than honest?

How did you come to that conclusion?

I hear that all the time. ALL THE TIME. and I've yet to have one person actually explain to me how they arrived at that conclusion without siting the Trump campaign or one of the sites on that list of fake news sites.

MSNBC, FOX, Brietbart and Infowars are the main culprits out there that I just don't trust but the reasons are solid. ABC, NBC and CBS are pretty accurate, they seem to just report what is said and done and let you arrive at your own conclusions. I never watched CNN so honestly, I have no clue what they are but damn, people sure complain a lot about them.

Mark Zuckerberg is a commie. He worked with Clinton, but look how that went. He lost!

Darn liberals.

I knew you'd come around!

Uh, try WORLD!

Aliens Land on U.S. Soil but there is good news and bad!

The bad news is they are eating people!!!
The good news is they only eat Libs!!!

ww!.40say.com

The media can greatly control political messaging by what they report, or don't report ..... how they write their headlines .... (which may be the only thing some people see) and by burying things like "this other person with knowledge of the situation holds a contrary view, and says that the documents touted in the top half of this article may have been falsified" in the latter middle part of an article. It is technically not lying ..... but it is misleading, to a very large degree. The New York Times admitted that they were biased against Trump. There are a lot of other media outlets that did things in a similar manner, or who followed the Times as to their reporting, and yes, that biased their reporting as well. Read some of the leaked emails. They are really telling.

Where'd you guys get your cutoff and shorts like these? I still need a pair.

I think 40's news site has a store.

ww!.40say.com\paydaman.html

Still not proof...

It's your feelings about them, but it's not proof.

It's not "feelings". There was an article on another thread, where the contrary view on "evidence" for the article was buried in the middle of their article. You can't see if you don't look.

The NY Times printed an apology .... then, of course, edited it a few days later. Fortunately other sources reported on it right away.

New York Times: We blew it on Trump | New York Post
http://nypost.com/2016/11/11/new-york-times-we-blew-it-on-trump/

New York Times publisher vows to 'rededicate' paper to reporting honestly | Fox News
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/11/...g-honestly.html

Look, and you will see. Read entire articles, and you'll see how they are structured, and titled.

By the way, did you know that most reporters do not control the titles of their articles, so the editor could put a headline of "Blue is green" on an article about fish sticks, if they wanted to. Many people skim the paper,and headlines are important.

I've come to that conclusion based on lots of different perspectives. I know people that have worked in the media industry. The networks themselves will sometimes show one of their counterparts as less than trustworthy. And yes, even some of those "fake" news sites will still have sourced information, that if you look through the spin, still has some truth to it. You also don't have to try very hard to use pure common sense to see when a media outlet is desperately trying to push a narrative.



The biggest difference between the former companies you mentioned and the latter, is the years of reputation they've built. It's also a long time to learn how to "play the game", so you can under-report some things, while pushing other items to the forefront. It's not out-right lying, it's just manipulation of facts.

Then again, what makes one news source "fake" over another? All of them will twist facts to some degree, but which ones have been caught out-right lying? Is there any way of keeping track of that? I do know that CBS had a long-running news anchor fired because he ran a story about a letter from Bush that was completely fabricated. NBC ran a Dateline exclusive about cars exploding because of some manufacturer defect that turned out to be the media company tampering with the gas tanks. All of them have hyped big stories such as breaks failing on Prius's and syringes found in Diet Pepsi cans, only to move on quickly and bury the true facts when it came out that both were hoaxes.

That's not even a real college.

How much more "proof" do you need? Straight from the horses mouth.

Not a real major either.

NBC's Brian Williams lied and was exiled to MSNBC.

NBC Fired a Producer Over Manipulated 911 Call in Trayvon Martin Case.

http://www.merrimack.edu/index.php

Then what is it?

LOL And fox news admitted that they made up a bunch of stuff on Bengazi and placed the blame on Clinton for political reasons.. Or did that come from one of the fake news sites.

Ytown, I know that headlines can be misleading. No question about it. Hell, it happens here on this very board.

So in that sense, they are ALL GUILTY of that.

But by and large, the MainStream Media just tells the story..

"But by and large, the MainStream Media just tells the story.."

Disagree. More like...

But by and large, the MainStream Media just pushes their agenda..

The MSM tells you the stories they want to, the way they want to, as often as they want to in order to help you reach the conclusion they want you to.

This is why I think Trump will be the first President to use Twitter so he can bypass the Press and talk to the American people directly.

Then we'll just get to hear them whine about not being allowed to go watch him eat a steak dinner.

LOL,, Do us all a favor and please use purple

The elites refuse to use purple.

Again, not to argue, but that's opinion not proven fact.

Look I get it, there is a bias in the media. Some for and some against a guy like Trump. But he created the media blitz by acting like a fool most of the last 2 years.

He said it and did it and they printed it and put it on TV.. Saturday night live used that and well, yeah, it's satire, but it was accurate which to me, made it even funnier.

But it's not just about this past election. Just the most recent bit of a storm.

What about all the other evidence posted including mine about NBC lying and falsifying. You conveniently ignore those things.

No sense in me telling you about George Snuffleupagus on Good Morning America being unbiased after having donated to the Clinton Foundation.