Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search
13 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
 

The_Casual_Observer

(27,742 posts)
1. Why they would dignify that bastard
Sun Mar 26, 2017, 10:44 PM
Mar 2017

With the shitty website is beyond me.
He was grinning his way to the bank.

Also he said there are sites like that on left and the right. I think that's bullshit. I don't know of any site on the left like that.

ColemanMaskell

(783 posts)
3. Maybe Bipartisan Report? Also, satire is often leftish and is considered fake news
Sun Mar 26, 2017, 10:55 PM
Mar 2017

Check out this link
http://www.fakenewschecker.com/

It lists 376 fake or satire news sites, that is, sites that they deem not credible

Satire is considered fake news because some people mistake it for actual news.
Borowitz is a good example.

The list only seems to cover US sites, as far as I noticed.

 

The_Casual_Observer

(27,742 posts)
6. No it was a gratuitous remark so as to sound "balanced"
Sun Mar 26, 2017, 11:03 PM
Mar 2017

When in fact there was nothing to back it up. It was a stupid naive report that did nothing but service that shithead's bogus enterprise.

 

Hulk

(6,699 posts)
2. Just watched this grinning parasite on 60 Minutes.....and they both do a disservice to our country
Sun Mar 26, 2017, 10:55 PM
Mar 2017

60 Minutes for having this piece of shit on and giving him a platform to grin and stick is finger in the eye of America. "See....I can sell you anything, and you're dumb enough to bite my hook." What a complete, worthless jack ass.

I agree with the previous post.....you see these snake oil parasites all over the right.....but please show me one on the left. That's bull shit of the same kind. They aren't "both doing it". That's garbage that they would like to have us believe to rationalize their evil, despicable behavior.

Also watched a video clip with Koppel interviewing that piece of shit, vannity; and again, there is a HUGE difference between the garbage and seditious crap he shovels and what you might hear on CNN or MSNBC, or any other media source. vannity's crap is nothing but seditious bull shit lies and distortions. The others might make an error, that they often correct later, but vannity is poison to truth. His radio show is garbage, and it's the food for the poisoned minds of the reich wingers in this screwed up, backward "once great nation".

ColemanMaskell

(783 posts)
5. Political Satire is generally left-leaning and can be mistaken for real news - and sometimes is
Sun Mar 26, 2017, 11:02 PM
Mar 2017

For example, the following story could have easily been mistaken for news

http://www.burrardstreetjournal.com/trump-canada-independence-was-mistake/

Trump Claims America Should Never Have Given Canada Its Independence
By the Burrard Street Journal - Friday, July 29, 2016

NEW YORK, NY—Donald J. Trump has told Fox and Friends that he believes the U.S. “should never have allowed” Canada to gain independence.

The President freely admits to being “a little rusty” on Canadian history, but feels confident that the United States owned Canada “at some point”, and claims giving it back was a “major mistake”.

... and so on

 

Hulk

(6,699 posts)
7. I take your point...
Sun Mar 26, 2017, 11:12 PM
Mar 2017

...but I think you understand the difference here. Jones, limpballs, vannity, savage, levine...and turd blossoms like this parasite are NOT using satire and parody and humor as their vehicle. They are shoveling their propaganda and misinformation as "fact". There is a big difference.

I honestly don't know of anyone who repeats a satire as fact they may have heard on Colbert or Samantha Bee's humor as fact; although there is often more fact than I'd like to admit at times.

This is a weak comparison of what distortions of reality you might dig up on the left to pit against the intentional misinformation that is pumped out methodically on the right from their sources. BIG difference.

ColemanMaskell

(783 posts)
10. Not Colbert, but things like Borowitz occasionally get quoted here (by mistake I'm sure). However --
Mon Mar 27, 2017, 12:26 PM
Mar 2017

Last edited Mon Mar 27, 2017, 11:53 PM - Edit history (1)

basically I agree that the right-wingers are far more over-the-top than any left-wing site I've seen.

The farthest out of the RW seem to have lost most of their grip on reality and be unable to differentiate reality from imagination. Even when not outright nuts, the bulk of them seem to see no pressing need to attempt to be honest.

I've never seen any left-winger advocate violence, for example, though perhaps it might happen rarely and I just haven't seen it; whereas right-wing violence is commonplace. All the historical political assassinations in the US have been of liberal figures, from Lincoln through MLK. There was one failed attempt on a conservative (Reagan) and it wasn't done by a left-winger it was done by a crazy guy trying to get the attention of a movie star he had a crush on.

You look at Alex Jones and the left has nothing comparable. Our most passionate advocates -- people like Sanders for example -- are eminently sane and rational. So, yeah, basically, you're right, it is unfair to equate the two sides as far as this issue.

But I still think it is useful to have a list like that just as a quick guide that can be checked. It is far from foolproof. For example it omits the National Enquirer and Fox News, while including a lot of sites that are not news sites at all and hence cannot reasonably be considered fake news. As you mention, it lumps commentary, editorial, and bias together with outright fabrications.

Note that the little greater-than symbol at the right of each item in the list allows the reader to click over to a brief detail page that tells more about that particular source and why it is on the list. If somebody inexperienced is about to post a link to a satire article, and they check the list, find the source and then click over to read the detail page, they can find out that it is a satire website and can save themselves the embarrassment of posting the link to that satire article as if it were Breaking News. Hence as a pragmatic tool the list can be useful.

The list itself is not a complete and sufficient check. It omits many not-really-news sites -- Burrard Street Journal is a very funny Canadian site designed to look very much like a news site, with funny idiocies it credits convincingly to Trump -- but the list is still a useful first check, as a purely practical short cut when dealing with an unfamiliar site.

Again, I did not mean to suggest a moral equivalency of innocuous satire or editorial with vicious and dangerous fabrications like the Pizza Parlor imaginary vice ring. The point of the list is to make it easy to check whether or not any particular site is likely to contain unreliable stories, not to assign a value judgement or score the site's morality. To say that two statements are both false does not imply in any way that the two statements are equivalent in any respect other than not being entirely factual.


tazkcmo

(7,286 posts)
8. No
Mon Mar 27, 2017, 01:37 AM
Mar 2017

People being too shallow to recognize satire and people being lied to in order to persuade them to support one political party over another are not the same thing. Not even close. There's also context to consider. There's an entire industry that peddles political snake oil to the masses. Show us the equivalent to be found on the left? Comedy Central?

ColemanMaskell

(783 posts)
11. It was pretty funny when SNL had Bryan Cranston as Walter White as a Trump nominee for drug czar
Mon Mar 27, 2017, 12:39 PM
Mar 2017

but the list isn't about TV satire. The satire sites it lists are things like the Onion and the Borowitz Report.

The Bipartisan Report did have a recent article (that I found only because it was posted here!) claiming that the 8 Supreme Court justices had all just signed a letter together protesting Gorsuch. No, it isn't on a level with Alex Jones; maybe nothing is; but the point is we want to be able to recognize fake news when we see it, and checking the source is one method for investigating likelihood of the story being true. I would not hesitate to quote an article from NYT, Newsweek, or WaPo, but I would want to double-check before posting a link to something in BiPartisan Report or the Burrard Street Journal (a Canadian satire online news site that has some great funny articles: http://www.burrardstreetjournal.com/ but it is designed to look like news and it could mislead someone naive, inexperienced)

tazkcmo

(7,286 posts)
13. Again, it's not fake news.
Mon Mar 27, 2017, 01:00 PM
Mar 2017

At this point I can only repeat myself as you double down on this false equivalency.

Seasider

(165 posts)
9. It's clear Scott Pelley is no Mike Wallace
Mon Mar 27, 2017, 08:25 AM
Mar 2017

What's the point is giving an idiot like Mike Cernovich a huge public platform to spew his b.s if you're not gonna call him on his b.s? Pelley then proceeds to try to play the moral equivalency card trying make the case this is happening both the left and right of the political spectrum but offers very little evidence that this a problem for the liberals.

ColemanMaskell

(783 posts)
12. Yeah the false equivalency is a persistent problem and it damaged us during the campaign
Mon Mar 27, 2017, 12:42 PM
Mar 2017

Trump could do the most outrageous things and the news media would portray that as equivalent to Hillary's email.

Latest Discussions»Retired Forums»Video & Multimedia»60 Minutes on "Fake News"