So a recent G+ post by Jeffro was the Washington Post whinging and crying that maybe, *maybe, *they should give up the hashtag/catchphrase “fake news” as it’s been (clutch pearls, please, and faint) “tainted”. It seems conservatives have changed the meaning and been using to dismiss (implied “just”) “liberal claptrap.”
Of course, there’s a completely un-selfaware (and accurate) definition of “fake news.”
Fake news has a real meaning — deliberately constructed lies, in the form of news articles, meant to mislead the public.
Unselfaware, and implied “just” because for the WaPo to admit that it and it’s brethern had indeed “deliberately constructed lies, in the form of news articles, meant to mislead the public“, would go all to far in explaining why, oh why, the hashtag was turned around on them by a right that had begun to learn from GamerGate.
We started punching back, and pointing out, in a way that hurts, that they are rotten, miserable, dishonest people.
On a related note, the wife of the awesome Alexander Macris, creator of the old-school D&D style Adventurer Conqueror King role-playing system, posted a link to the following Mitchell and Webb skit. It was in response to the snobbery on high display at the golden globes, but Alexander’s retweet quote, “If only they could be that self aware”, is entirely relevant here.
I’ll have to write up a summary of fake news – maybe even create an [infogalactic](https://infogalactic.com/) page if one doesn’t exist already…. (checked, doesn’t, but now intend to start a stub page for media lies going all the way back to 60 minutes and the truck collision reporting to Rather and the NG papers to blatant video butchery on the part of CNN, ABC, NBC, etc. – and I’ll forward #Fakenews to that)If anyone else starts the project before I do, let me know here.
