Weaponizing the term fake news lets leaders dismiss verified reporting
Evidence
Throughout his first year as president, Trump has tried to exploit the idea of fake news for his own purposes by branding anything he does not want to believe as fake. … CNN did not report the content of those claims nor say that they were true. All they had done was accurately report that Trump and Obama had been briefed on them. But this was enough for Trump to dismiss it all as “fake news.” In the ensuing months, Trump said it was fake news that the media had reported infighting among his aides at the White House, that his poll numbers were falling, and a host of other double-sourced verified factual claims. What a moment in meta-irony. Can the identification of fake news itself now be considered an exercise in spreading fake news? — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 220
Categorization
- SEED: Could support an essay on how the vocabulary of epistemic crisis gets captured by those it was coined against.
- XREF: connects to: The ‘fake news’ charge asserts press bias rather than literal fabrication of stories — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New…, 131; Fake news blurred the line between official and media definers; Fake news transitions from a profit motive to political weaponization — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 213 (+2 more)
Broader Connections
- Fake news functions as a rallying cry delegitimizing the press, not as a theory.
#expands(0.88) — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 259 - Fake news transitions from a profit motive to political weaponization
#corroborates(0.85) — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 213 - The phrase fake news is ascribed to whichever outlet is politically opposed
#corroborates(0.85) — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 723 - Fake news blurred the line between official and media definers
#expands(0.82)