Concern over “fake news” has become a major theme of government and government-supporting news media. In recent years, several “fact-checker” organizations have been launched, with major funding from deep state sources such as George Soros and the New York Times organization. In general, such “fact-checkers” label information generated by critics and skeptics of government as unreliable or “fake news.”
Last year, Jill Abramson, a self-styled gatekeeper of the mainstream journalism establishment, published a book entitled “Merchants of Truth” which extolled the virtues of so-called legacy media and condemned alternative news sources as inherently unreliable and unethical. Abramson’s book was later found to be filled with plagiarism and inaccuracies.
Recently the Pew Research Center conducted a poll whose results were viewed as startling to some. The Drudge Report, often considered the king of alternative news sources, ran with the headline “POLL SHOCK: MORE WORRIED ABOUT ‘FAKE NEWS’ THAN TERROR.”
But the details of the poll do not support the conventional narrative. While many are concerned about fake news, THEY BLAME POLITICAL LEADERS, not alternative news journalism, for misleading the public. And while some 79 percent say “steps must be taken” to combat fake news, they generally indicate that news reporters themselves must step up to fix the problem.
