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The Fake News Crisis.........of 1896

posted by janrinok on Sunday January 29 2017, @07:58AM   Printer-friendly
from the he's-not-even-original dept.

DeathMonkey writes:

Fake news is everywhere. The power of the press is said to be waning. And because the nation's most famous populist—the man with his sights on the presidency—can't trust the lying media, he says, he has no option but to be a publisher himself.

Oh yeah, and the year is 1896.

The would-be president in question is William Jennings Bryan. In an era before the internet, television, or radio, the best way to reach the masses is with newsprint. So, without the option of tweeting his grievances after losing the election to William McKinley, what does Bryan do? He starts his own newspaper. And he uses it to rail against "fake news."

I don't need to tell you a lot of this sounds weirdly familiar.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/01/the-fake-news-crisis-120-years-ago/513710/

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  • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday January 29 2017, @07:09PM

    by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Sunday January 29 2017, @07:09PM (#460356) Homepage Journal

    Especially since almost three million people voted against him instead of for him. As you pointed out, any mandate is imaginary. American voters sisn;t elect Trump, the Electoral College did.

    And people still think this is a democracy...

    --
    mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 29 2017, @10:06PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday January 29 2017, @10:06PM (#460422) Journal
    As Trump noted, he'd have optimized his campaign for popular vote, if that was what counted. It was a democratic election by the rules. And since I don't live in the most populated states, I don't mind that they don't get to decide the US president by themselves.

    • (Score: 2) by Bogsnoticus on Monday January 30 2017, @05:52AM

      by Bogsnoticus (3982) on Monday January 30 2017, @05:52AM (#460531)

      Bullshit. That is just him making excuses because his ego is extremely wounded by not winning the popular vote as well.

      He keeps making claims about voter fraud, but can never produce the evidence of it.

      --
      Genius by birth. Evil by choice.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday January 30 2017, @08:12AM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 30 2017, @08:12AM (#460562) Journal

        Bullshit. That is just him making excuses because his ego is extremely wounded by not winning the popular vote as well.

        He is correct no matter how wounded his ego is here. It is misleading to claim Clinton should have won because of the popular vote, when no one was trying to win the popular vote.