Can a Trump supporter explain to me how fake news works?

Politics & Elections
1

Some recent statements by President Trump:

So I’m attempting to understand what he is claiming.

Is the President saying that recent events like the mail bombs, the Kentucky supermarket shootings, and the Pittsburgh synagogue shootings didn’t happen? That the media just made these events up?

Or is he saying that these events occurred but they were staged by the media? Or that they were staged by somebody else and media was wrong to report them? If so, does the President think the media knew the events were staged?

Or does the President believe that these events did occur but feel that they were not newsworthy and the media only chose to report them in order to avoid reporting on other more important stories?

Or does the President feel that these events occur but the media is deliberately altering the facts of the events in their report, by adding and subtracting to the facts they report?

How does the President feel these things are co-ordinated? Is there somebody who tells the media which stories to cover and which to avoid? There are thousands of media sources in this country; how do these decisions get communicated?

I realize there are going to be many posters who will want to mock the President on this topic. But I want them to refrain. There are other threads where you can do that. I honestly want responses from people who support the President so I can understand their point of view.

2

I am not a Trump supporter, and I would assume that Trump is leaving it to others to decide what he means, rather than he himself having an intended meaning for the most part, but if there is some actual meaning, I would assume that it’s that the media is portraying Trump and Republicans as being anti-Semitic, racist, etc. and so bolstering racists and anti-Semites.

3

I don’t see the media reporting “Trump and Republicans are anti-semites and racists.” What they report are things like “A man in Pittsburgh killed Jewish people in a synagogue” or “A man in Louisville killed black people in a supermarket.”

Those reports seem to me to be objective statements of facts. So how are they fake news? Are the facts different than what’s being reported? Are facts being added or left out? What’s the fake part?

4

see I originally thought fake news was almost anything you see in a checkout counter at a store ……ie star enquirer intouch especially globe weekly world news ect…….

5

Do you believe everything that Fox News says is accurate and truthful? Why? I suspect your answer is no and it’s due to bias. Which leads to the question if it’s possible that bias can also affect other news organizations? What about inherently bias platforms such as Samantha Bee or the daily show which some consider “news”?

6

The regular news outlets are exposing Trumps lies and he doesn’t like it. He’s in a fishbowl and his words matter. But he has diarrhea of the mouth and can’t shut his pie hole. He has lied so much throughout his life he doesn’t know how to tell the truth. I believe he has lied since childhood. If his mouth is moving he’s lying. That’s my take on it. When CNN reports the falsehood it just pisses him off and he gets mileage at his rallies by saying “fake news”. His supporters eat it up like candy.

7

Based on this post, I think we can put you down as not being a Trump supporter. And I already know what that viewpoint is. I’m asking for the viewpoint of someone who is a Trump supporter.

8

I personally would call Fox News biased. But I wouldn’t call what they report fake news.

9

What other news outlets besides Fox had had one of their own reporters accuse them of manufacturing stories, allegedly on behalf of the Trump White House in an attempt at distracting their core audience from Mueller’s investigation?

10

I get a chuckle when people ask for “Trump Supporters” to answer questions on these boards.

Can’t you just PM him?

11

I would assume that “fake news” means “I don’t care if I, the president, lie and misdirect.”

12

I’m not a Trump supporter, far from it, but I do have friends and relatives who are.

Generally speaking, at least from my more, umm…, ardent friends, the goal of the corrupt MSM is to make conservatives, Republicans, and especially Trump look bad no matter what and in all cases. They do this by FAKE NEWS! Which are the made up or distorted stories that refuse to acknowledge how America is being Made Great Again by Trump and/or describe problematic issues that don’t actually exist. If you get your information from MSM, you are being duped and brainwashed and Just Don’t Get It. Almost by definition, any critical reporting on Trump is fake and should be dismissed as sour grapes by the loser MSM and Obama and Hillary supporters.

This bad for America because the FAKE NEWS the MSM produces confuses the unenlightened segment of the population who haven’t yet recognized Trump’s greatness and so the MSM is responsible for the divisiveness in the country, not Trump. Because in their minds Trump is the most honest elected official there has ever been (he’s so great because he’s not a politician) and it’s the MSM that is dishonest and lying to the people.

Now, this might seem like satire and I realize not all Trump supporters are like this, but you should see what some of these people say in person and post on Facebook. They get their news and memes from Fox (which actually seems like the most respectable source), Breitbart, InfoWars, and what have to be Russian bots.

And if I just saw what they posted on Facebook, I would think they were fake Russian accounts, but I know them in real life. One guy is still going with the false flag mail bomber hoax theory as of yesterday.

15

This guy actually just shared an example of what Trump supporters are using as an example of the MSM’s deceitfulness.

His own post says “Tune out the lie and hide the truth networks.” and some pro-Republican stuff. The post he shares is all about how the MSM is purposefully not reporting on what an awesome job the Trump admin is doing in the aftermath of Hurricane Michael in FL. They were prepared before the hurricane hit by having everybody ready to go–FEMA, State troopers, Nat. Guard, Insurance agents, medical personnel, etc.

Why isn’t the media covering this?

The poster then invites people who doubt her to come down and see it for themselves.

Maybe a FL Doper can comment about the response down there.

16

I see two things at play here.

First, the question of bias in the news. It happens, and it has been happening ever since newspapers have been published. One great example is–suppose the government passes a tax cut. How is it reported?

Source A: “Tax Cut: More Money in Your Pocket”
Source B: “Tax Cut: Welfare Moms and Kids to Suffer”

Both statements are (or could be) considered correct. Yes, a tax cut means you keep more of what you earn. And yes, perhaps a tax cut means that there will be fewer dollars for welfare, or other social programs. But Source A, being conservative, plays up the “it’s your money; you should keep it” angle; while Source B, being liberal, plays up the “we aren’t showing compassion for the poor” angle. Both sources are correct, but neither source is willing to report the position that the other side is pushing–or if they do, it’s continued off the front page onto page 8, or after the next commercial break.

Secondly, it’s the inability of many today to distinguish between news and opinion. Yes, there are those who consider Samantha Bee and Trevor Noah to be “news” reporters, but they aren’t–they are simply opinions. The same can be said for any number of bloggers.

We don’t see this often at the SDMB, because we tend to require solid, factual cites but on another board I follow, it frequently happens. A thread will be titled something like, “MSM Not Reporting Massive Crowds at Trump Rallies,” and post a link to support their statement. Follow the link, and it leads to Joe Anonymous’ blog that says something like, “I think the attendance figure of 5000 at today’s rally is wrong. I was there; I think there had to be at least 15,000.” Not a fact–just an opinion, as shown by the words, “I think”–but it’s enough for the thread’s OP, who cannot distinguish between facts and opinion, to glom onto as “The New York Times and CNN said 5000, but there were actually 15,000. Fake news!”

Little Nemo, I cannot answer the questions you posed in the OP. But I hope that my contribution here can help with the discussion.

17

My guess is, incidents like CNN editing the George Zimmerman transcript where he said, “This guy looks like he’s up to good (important part then snipped out by media)…he’s black.”

If not, then I dunno.

18

You think they are Trump supporters on the Dope?

19

Fake News does not have a strict definition. Fake News will mean whatever those who believe it exists to mean. It can be traditional bias, omission of information, or downright lying. Fake News has always been with us. It’s the term, or widespread use of it, that is new. What I think is Fake News may not quite be what others think is Fake News but no doubt there is a significant overlap between those who agree it exists.

20

I think that a distinction should be made between bias and what Fox News does. Bias could be in putting a different spin on the truth, or in emphasizing different aspects of a story. Bias could even, in the extreme case, mean not running anything at all about the President’s personal lawyer having his offices raided by the FBI, and instead running some other unrelated story. But when that other story you’re running instead is about sex-crazed killer pandas, that’s just fake news.

21

I am no longer a Trump supporter. Go ahead, take your shots. I’ll make no justifications, or provide any response to related inquiries. But to the fake news topic…

First you need to understand the colloquial meaning of the term “news” has changed. The entire “news” paradigm has shifted significantly in the past couple of decades. What is often being presented as news is really veild attempts to manipulate your thought process. People have learned that even factual reporting can be slanted to evoke an emotional or even irrational response.

After you realize that just about everything you see and hear in the supercharged all-electronic global thing that is current awareness for anyone who matters represents attempts to mold your response in pre-defined ways, you start to get it.

22

You say that as if this is a recent thing. Sensationalizing the news to drive up sales has been around, and even had a name, since the 1800’s.

It’s not new, it’s not hard to deal with, it is just that it seems every generation or so, people think that this is some new thing, because they hadn’t heard of it before.

The people who write the news are humans, humans with opinions. They also need to decide what to report on. Is it bias that they reported on the school shooting, but didn’t report on the hundreds of thousands of schools that didn’t have a school shooting that day? At some point, someone has to make a decision as to what is newsworthy, and just because you disagree with it, doesn’t make it fake.

That is why the MSM is far better than fringe outlets. The MSM polices itself. If ABC gets a story wrong, NBC is more than happy to provide a correction. News outlets love to scoop or correct another reporter’s story, so the reporter wants to get it right, and if they find an error, they want to correct it before another outlet does.

Then you have your Foxes or further to the fringe. Fox doesn’t care that they are called out constantly for getting stories wrong. They know that their audience won’t ever know about it, and anything that they do hear will be dismissed as “MSM lies”. Getting even further out to breitbart’s or infowars, and you have just complete fabrications with no basis in reality being presented as factual news.

So, you are correct that the meaning of “news” has changed, but it has only changed for the parts of the country that want to be assured of what they believe, and don’t want to be challenged to consider their beliefs, so fake news is anything that doesn’t fit with their personal narratives.

I also disagree that these right wing outlets “veil” their attempts at emotional manipulation in the slightest, or that they bother to do so with “factual” reporting.