Drawing the line on Fake News

I voted for Donald J. Trump in 2016
in Idaho. Today, I have no regrets
and am proud of the decision
I made to help elect him as president.

Silence is golden, as duct tape is silver, but the human voice is platinum, are wise words to live by. And I am thankful everyday that I can use mine. You know, the voice. But where do we draw the line on fake news? Fake news is simply yellow journalism which is created intentionally to spread malicious propaganda, hoping the reader will not only fall for it, but spread the story. This is in addition to hoping the masses will follow, embracing the domino effect. Most of the time those who spread such agitprop are looking for a reaction from the reader and of course money from the clicks to story itself.

What really happens when you spread Fake News

An unidentified third-party may contact a media outlet about Donald Trump. The reporter who first heard of the story has decided they dislike Donald Trump for his past behavior, so this reporter has made a decision that they want to take the information about the president and exaggerate it to fit their narrative.

Without fact checking nor separating fact from fiction, the story then becomes amplified with untruths just because that reporter has decided they do not like Trump. Kind of like taking an original classic song and adding an array of pro tools to make it sound better when really the song sounds overproduced and worse. Now, does the song sound anymore truthful because of it's overproduction? Maybe this isn't the best example.

How about this? It is a fact school shootings have occurred in a fascist nation of the land of free and the home of the brave (the United States), but one must consider the legitimacy of their stories as according to the NPR (with the help of non-profit Child Trends) in an article titled 'The School Shootings That Weren't' there are quite a few that never even happened.

Was the intent to create a school shooting to strip away our 2nd amendment right? Guns are portrayed as being weapons used to kill, but nothing is mentioned about the strengths of a gun and how they can protect the people. Although you may or may not ever hear about this in the news, fake news will never cover the strengths of ever owning any kind of rifle or pistol. The fake news also camouflages the harsh realities and aftermath of school shootings and hurts real victims testimonies.

Donald Trump Tries To Stop It

The president of the United States, Donald Trump has been dubbed a "loose cannon" for calling out this ongoing, problematic issue. Because of this, people see him as the problem and not the solution. Instead of being thankful for Trump's ability to address these ongoing issues and want to fix them, they want to make him the issue. Why? It is a well known fact that those who continue to embrace various news outlets tend to overlook the problem at hand and go after anyone who uses their voice to challenge the problem.

When Trump originally coined the "fake news" term he was merely defending himself from the lies and untruths being spread about him. The 45th president of the United States used his liberty to defend others who are also a target of this type of disinformation spiel and went on to dispute the puff pieces created by various fake news outlets trying to push Hillary Clinton into office. And because most of these zines lack identity, it makes litigation extremely difficult to pursue.

The End Result

If a reporter creates a story with one-dimensional, aggregated news content, does that mean the reporter is right and the reader is wrong for questioning it? What if that reporter covers a story, but neglects the points they are trying to make by concealing their views with deconstructionism and banal reductionism based on opinion and heresy? As everyone has the right to free speech and freedom of press is embraced in more ways than one, does this mean they have the right to publish whatever they choose to a platform with a bigger audience? Fake news is equivocally fabricated and manipulated as well as, relentlessly mocked to not just media and journalism, but to those who are engaged and affected by it. And because of its nature, it can cause more harm than not. There are consequences to every action and it is crystal clear these consequences are inevitable to avoid.

This goes with the question we all have-where do we really draw the line on fake news?