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From Breitbart:
Another day, another very fake news story from the network President Donald Trump has identified as "very fake news."
CNN's Thomas Frank on Thursday evening published what would have been considered an explosive report if remotely true: One anonymous source told him both the Treasury Department and Senate Intelligence Committee are probing a Russian investment fund with ties to several senior finance world leaders close to President Trump. Only problem? Both Trump administration officials and those close to Senate GOP leadership say it's simply untrue.
The retraction from CNN:
On June 22, 2017, CNN.com published a story connecting Anthony Scaramucci with investigations into the Russian Direct Investment Fund.
That story did not meet CNN's editorial standards and has been retracted. Links to the story have been disabled. CNN apologizes to Mr. Scaramucci.
According to BuzzFeed News, CNN has responded by actually requiring executives to review stories:
CNN is imposing strict new publishing restrictions for online articles involving Russia after the network deleted a story and then issued a retraction late Friday, according to an internal email obtained by BuzzFeed News.
The email went out at 11:21 a.m. on Saturday from Rich Barbieri, the CNNMoney executive editor, saying "No one should publish any content involving Russia without coming to me and Jason," a CNN vice president.
At least now we'll know who to blame.
[Ed Note: I debated leaving this in politics or dropping it to the main page. I opted for the latter because politics or not, the prevalence of "fake news" is one that we deal with on a daily basis from our respective social media feeds to all the major broadcast and cable news networks. How are we to tell what is "fake" and what is actually (relatively) "true"? The main stream media all put their spin on everything. A right slant for some, a left slant for others. Is the truth somewhere in between, or is it a story that we aren't getting becasue the mainstream media is so intent on telling their narrative that we the people are getting the shit end of the stick regardless of where we get the so called news?]
(Score: 5, Informative) by Whoever on Tuesday June 27 2017, @02:51PM (51 children)
The article wasn't pulled because it was fake news. It was pulled because the proper procedures to verify the details were not followed.
It may be fake, but we really don't know.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Tuesday June 27 2017, @03:04PM (16 children)
I mean really, guys--you know this whole "fake news" hullabaloo is a thing, right? Maybe try to get a second source if the first is anonymous :P
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Sulla on Tuesday June 27 2017, @03:33PM (1 child)
What do you do when he is anonymous too?
I think the problem is not the anonymous sources, it is the lack of vetting them. Story after story lacks proper sourcing and then ends up being false, the response is to double down and try to find a way to make it true rather than actually find real news.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday June 27 2017, @04:13PM
Sure. We've been hearing about circular reference news that cites Wikipedia without any real sources for years.
I bet some of the time the author suspects it might not be real, but they roll the dice on it to get in before somebody else breaks the story.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2017, @03:36PM (2 children)
Ha!
I have fifteen anonymous sources that can confirm that my internet penis is bigger than your's.
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Tuesday June 27 2017, @05:30PM
you have convinced me...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 28 2017, @08:19AM
So, You're the one whose been yelping everytime I snap my laptop shut!
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 27 2017, @04:28PM
Can't be first to break the story if you wait for verification.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2017, @05:59PM (5 children)
The sources are generally not anonymous to the reporter. We rely on the integrity of the journalists and the organization they work for to vet the sources and write a factual, informative story.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2017, @08:10PM
Which won't work if the journalists have no integrity and thus no confidence among the readers. There may be some latency but it's usually a one way function once found out.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday June 28 2017, @12:05AM (3 children)
Exactly right. And it doesn't work. Back when Woodward and Bernstein were getting the dope from Mark Felt / Deep Throat they couldn't just run with it. The editors wouldn't hear of it because that just isn't how journalism works and they were afraid too many of their subscribers knew it. What they COULD and DID do was allow Felt to explain the inside details and give them clues like "follow the money" which would lead them to actual news. Actual news defined as documents and on the record statements from actual named people. And in the end it was enough, they got their great white whale. History can judge whether it was a good thing. In these post journalism days they just take the anonymous source and run with it, pledging the 'full faith and credibility' of the news organization behind the validity of the claims. And too many times the stories backed only with anonymous sources fall apart. So they quickly spent that faith and credibility and can't figure out why the game isn't working anymore. Remember, the MSM was the morons who started the #FakeNews thing, too blind to see how easy it would be to reverse that charge back on them. Too arrogant to see the obvious, that their popularity ratings was only slightly better (in some polls) than Congress but worse than Bill Cosby, based almost entirely on a perception they were untrustworthy weasels with an agenda. And we haven't even seen polls updated to reflect six months of "Russia! Russia! Russia!" hysteria.
The model is defective. If you are making claims based on nothing more than "trust me, I'm a journalist; I know who the leaker is and I trust them" it is a good thing that people quickly stop believing. At least get some leaked documents. Something! Now that this model is pining for the fjords we can hopefully get back to actual journalism, reporting based on documentable facts and not the personal popularity of the reporter. With the Internet, that means we won't need to restrict 'journalism' to a small cabal prone to groupthink and entryism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 28 2017, @01:43AM
http://projectveritas.com/video/american-pravda-cnn-producer-says-russia-narrative-bullsht/ [projectveritas.com]
'nuff said
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 28 2017, @09:18AM (1 child)
Can I get a camera feed from inside of jmorris gastro-intestinal tract? What with the shit he spins outside, there must be veritable kalidoscopes of stuff up there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @06:36AM
You missed it, AC! teh ProjectVeritas _is_ the feed you are looking for! Fake News, Fake Video, Fake costumes, Fake republicans! Convicted, even! It's that little weasel, oh, what's his name? He so, so wanted to be famous. Now he is just a felon, stuck up jmorris's nether regions. Sad.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2017, @07:53PM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2017, @08:41PM
https://theintercept.com/2015/04/16/welcome-unofficial-sources/ [theintercept.com]
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday June 27 2017, @08:47PM
Fine, then shift the responsibility to the editor. It's at least partially his job to look at the article from the outside perspective of the reader to avoid making the media corp look like idiots. "So we talked to a single dude who we won't tell you who it is, but take our word on it. Hobo Bob^W^WOur source is very trusted."
But the MSM probably takes it for granted everyone trusts them.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2017, @08:29PM
An "anonymous source" is one that will not be publicly identified (for example, because the source could get in trouble for it, or because the journalist has promised secrecy in the hopes of getting more stories in the future). It does not necessarily mean that the journalist doesn't know the identity of the source.
That said, it is definitely safer for the source if the journalist doesn't know his/her identity either, because of all the laws made against journalism under the guise of "national security".
(Score: 4, Insightful) by urza9814 on Tuesday June 27 2017, @03:43PM (18 children)
Yup. And I love the summary here, asserting that we know these people aren't under investigation because the people allegedly under investigation have themselves stated that they aren't under investigation. Yeah, I'm not gonna trust Trump on much of anything, but CERTAINLY not about whether or not Trump/Trump staff is under investigation...
Of course, I'm not gonna trust a retracted story from an "anonymous source" either. So I'm not saying the story is *true*, I'm just saying "Suspects claims he's innocent!" really isn't something to lead with. That entire breitbart segment adds nothing of value to this summary.
(Score: 0, Troll) by ikanreed on Tuesday June 27 2017, @04:09PM (17 children)
And we reference fucking brietbart.
Solve humanity's biggest problem, publicly execute BK and cmn32480, for they are too stupid to live.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by ikanreed on Tuesday June 27 2017, @04:30PM (2 children)
Nope, sorry, totally willing to sacrifice as much karma as needed here: execute BK and cmn32480, for they are too stupid to live.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2017, @04:45PM (1 child)
execute ikanreed for he is too stupid to live
(Score: 1, Troll) by ikanreed on Tuesday June 27 2017, @05:43PM
Yes, tell me more about how your material composition is not-unlike rubber, and I, instead am an adhesive.
(Score: 3, Touché) by BK on Tuesday June 27 2017, @04:42PM (12 children)
Whelp. Funny how the progressives are so quick to resort to violence? Kill those who violate the echo chamber?
I toss obviously slanted Breitbart links in the occasional story because we keep posting stories from 'Common Dreams' and other slanted sources. I'm not sure if that's trolling or if I'm being trolled. In my defense, I also linked CNN itself as a primary source and BuzzFeed which at least pretends to be mainstream - if a bit tabloidish. And the story is _everywhere_ now since heads are rolling at CNN.
I'd happily join with those who think politics should mostly stay off this site. But, history shows, we do like to talk politics...
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 2) by unauthorized on Tuesday June 27 2017, @04:49PM
We aren't. SJWs are to progressives what WBC is to conservatives.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by ikanreed on Tuesday June 27 2017, @05:37PM (8 children)
Who wants to write up a complex reply to the kinda person who cites Breitbart and thinks Buzzfeed counts as balance?
I don't particularly respect conservatives' right to life anymore. You're reality immune fascists who are currently threatening the lives of my family with your backwards ideology.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2017, @09:13PM (2 children)
I used to be against the death penalty. That was until I realized that it is the ONLY way to cure a psychopath
(Score: 1, Troll) by ikanreed on Tuesday June 27 2017, @09:53PM (1 child)
Psychopaths are okay compared to modern conservatives, they don't turn being a shitty human being with no redeeming characteristics into an ideology they celebrate.
And evidence shows psychopaths are treatable(just not the way the American justice system does it), unlike the shitty pseudo-fascists we've developed lately.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 28 2017, @03:10PM
Treatment is not a cure. And it is impossible to tell with a psychopath anyway. Best to just shoot them and be done with it. Kinetic energy is the only real cure. Treatment only builds a facade.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday June 27 2017, @10:14PM (4 children)
"The only way to win is not to play." When you talk of killing right wing propagandists and liars, you're playing their game. Their understanding of the world is that it's a big competition. They see everything through that lens. "Facts" are just another thing to fight over, and to them objective reality is less important than perception. Nuclear war? What a powerful way to eliminate a whole lotta competition, and there are frighteningly many people who are deluded about their own chances of surviving a nuclear war and would launch the nukes if they could. You know, just get in a lead lined fridge, duck and cover, clear the mothballs and cobwebs from Grandpa's old fallout shelter he built in 1962, and keep it stocked and ready.
It's a jungle out there, a dog eat dog world, so they claim, and you just identified yourself as a progressive, and proposed the elimination of a bunch of their dogs, through force, the ultimate tool of the maximal competitor. If you really are a progressive, and not a conservative provocateur plant masquerading as a progressive, you could hardly say a worse thing. Just hand them the very thing they need so they can say progressives are no different, and confirm their world view that there's no more to life than fighting.
We didn't fight our way to the top of the animal kingdom. We are the physically weakest of all the animals
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday June 27 2017, @10:40PM (1 child)
What do you want me to say? That modern day conservatives aren't vile scum who take basically every part of modern society for granted while attempting to deny those same protections for everyone slightly different? That they're decent human beings, not gigantic lying hypocrites?
Because if I gave you that premise, your conclusion would be valid. But they're not. Sanity left the conservatives years ago. Human decency probably before that. Now there seems to be nothing left but people who will actively chase whatever gives them validation for the dumb shit they believe, no matter how nonsensical, destructive, and stupid it may be.
We are facing the apotheosis of a cult of tolerating intolerance.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday June 28 2017, @01:04AM
The debate is not happening in the dark, it is happening on a big stage, and there are many, many undecided people watching what is said and done. The audience counts for much more than the idiots parroting the propaganda and lies. What you say and do should always be with the audience in mind. You can't show everyone that facts, truth, and science is ultimately stronger if you propose stooping to the level of those who are playing at being the messengers and minions of ignorance and force, lovers of guns, by reaching for the very tools and methods for which they profess respect. They may yet be persuaded to change their views, but not that way. If they see that they are at odds with most of the world, if they can be pried out of their bubbles and echo chambers far enough to see that for themselves, many will quietly switch, and all the more easily if they can do so without someone trying to embarrass them.
There is hope. Look how radically views have changed on homosexuality. In the 1990s, it was "don't ask, don't tell", and their marriages weren't allowed. What was the big deal, why were the social conservatives so opposed to gay marriage, how did it affect them? Well, it didn't, and they've now pretty much conceded that point. Race relations have been more in the news lately, but have improved despite perhaps a recent step back. Our first black president just finished his 2nd term peaceably. Video recordings, especially with smartphones, have blown the cover that racist cops used to be able to rely on to do their dirty deeds. Cops tried to ban video recording of them at work, and failed hugely. Now they have to have the cameras themselves! As for Climate Change, the denialists are making lots of noise, still enough of them to do that, but they're a laughingstock. The rest of us have been quietly moving to do things about the problem. City managers on the coast and farmers know it's happening and have been taking measures to deal with it. It would be better if we could have more international coordination sooner. Once again, as with gay marriage, idiots are opposing something because they were manipulated into it, not because they have a personal stake in it, rather the opposite. Another advance is on the War on Drugs, with marijuana legalization spreading across the nation.
So, chill out. Brietbart and Fox News and those ilk have little credibility outside their echo chambers, never did have much. Did you not find it hugely amusing when Rush Limbaugh had to reveal he was addicted to OxyContin? How about that slut shaming he tried on Sandra Fluke? He went too far, and is at last fading into obscurity, advertisers abandoning him. his show shunted to the least popular corners of the radio spectrum, or kicked off entirely. Roger Ailes and Bill O'Reilly ruined themselves with the way they treated women, kept doing it until they were finally exposed, then made it worse trying to handle it with bluster and coverups. The days of reckoning will come for other liars, and we can still afford to wait for it, still have leeway on our various problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 28 2017, @01:10AM (1 child)
And in the back of my mind all I could hear was "first they came for the liberals, but I did not speak up for I was a libertarian..."
There is a time for peace and tolerance, and there is a time to push back against encroaching fascism and prejudice. The popular tactic now is for conservatives to try and paint liberals as the evil things liberals don't like, it is sad and hypocritical.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 28 2017, @03:15PM
Agreed. I'm a bleeding heart libertarian, and I spoke up a little when they came for the liberals. I only spoke up because I thought they could be reasoned with. They cannot. Reason won't reach them, because they're no longer seeking an intellectual dialogue. All they're doing is trolling, and lest we forget, "Don't feed the trolls."
I think it's funny how they think they're the only ones who own guns. At this point, I want them to go ahead and try to round up LGBTs and put us all in concentration camps. I'm a libertarian because I'm LGBT, and I think that libertarianism provides a practical framework that's fundamentally rooted in the messiness of the real world, including both the needed from time to time to defend loved ones and property from lethal force with lethal force and the aversion to resorting to such means.
"Come at me bro" is the only rational response to what conservatives have become. "Came at me bro" is just words after all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2017, @07:09PM
Quit trying to be fair, you jerk!
You're either with them or against them, and liberals get bullet too(tm).
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday June 27 2017, @08:11PM
Ah, that explains it then! Conservative, low intelligence, unable to detect trolling or fake news, thus the Brietfart story submission. Carry on, BK, obviously not are not too stupid to live, so far. But some stupid decisions, like voting for Trump or supporting Hitler's ascension to Chancellor, often take some years to kill you.
(Score: 2) by unauthorized on Tuesday June 27 2017, @04:44PM
Uh-uh, there we go again. Poland better start reinforcing it's borders.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday June 27 2017, @04:00PM (11 children)
Where is the line drawn?
I look at it like this. Fake news is any story in which false information is knowingly crafted by its author to convey and support bias. It can originate from a blog or a major news outlet. They purposefully start small, on blogs, or smaller alt/independent news sites and then propagate using social media in the hopes of a major news outlet picking up the story and passing it along as fact. Pizzagate is one example of fake news.
If the CNN story was not properly fact checked and the article was written in ignorance, then that's not fake news. Thats shitty reporting and almost as bad as fake news.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday June 27 2017, @06:00PM (4 children)
To me it seems a casualty of slashing newsrooms for a couple decades. Nobody does original reporting anymore because it is expensive. They pull "stories" off the AP Wire, from corporate press releases tailored for and fed to them, and from their Twitter feeds. They repackage that "material" for an optimal Pavlovian quotient, and call it news.
Along with it has gone the 'reporter as hero' archetype from popular entertainment. The mid-80's is the last time I think I saw such a film. The only media-related film I can recall seeing in the last decade were the Ron Burgundy spoofs, and they were more epitaph than laudatory.
Glen Greenwald and Julian Assange might have taken up Woodward's mantle, but they preferred to be divas.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Taibhsear on Wednesday June 28 2017, @03:05PM (3 children)
Counterpoint: Supergirl and Daredevil both have this trope.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday June 28 2017, @04:25PM (2 children)
Supergirl debuted in 1959, Daredevil in 1964 (according to Wikipedia). They're products of a time when 'journalist as hero' was believable, so they're not really counterpoints but hold-overs in the same way that Superman's Clark Kent is or Spiderman's Peter Parker is.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Taibhsear on Wednesday June 28 2017, @07:03PM (1 child)
Purposely ignoring the ones that are recent or still on the air or were you honestly unaware of them?
Supergirl (2015): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4016454/ [imdb.com]
Daredevil (2015): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3322312/ [imdb.com]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday June 28 2017, @08:31PM
Unaware. And ignorant of the Supergirl and Daredevil histories. My knowledge of superheros is shallow and what little I do know is more about X-men than anything else. If 'journalist as hero' are recent additions to the storylines of Supergirl and Daredevil, then I stand corrected. If they've been there from their inception, then it seems like continuity from an earlier time when journalists were much more highly regarded than they are today, in the same way Clark Kent's and Peter Parker's characters are.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday June 27 2017, @06:25PM (4 children)
The archetype of fake news is joe blogger who reads some sensational headline somewhere that he gut-thinks is a "good story," does no research, and proceeds to post about it without actually bothering to do any research.
And that's pretty much exactly what CNN did here. That's pretty much exactly what all the MSM have been doing for years, at least when certain topics were involved, but what's changing is that they keep getting more blatant and less ashamed about it.
So I don't know. It would be nice if this really signaled a change in their behavior. But I'm skeptical. Probably it just means they toned back the dial by 6 months or so but won't change anything else.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday June 27 2017, @09:29PM (3 children)
No. That's not fake news. That's shoddy journalism. There';s a difference.
Fake news is *deliberately false* information seeded into the information sphere to pollute public discourse. PizzaGate [wikipedia.org] was fake news, the CNN story was just crappy journalism, where those involved didn't follow their own standards. See the difference?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 1) by Arik on Tuesday June 27 2017, @10:09PM (2 children)
You can't do that, I can't do that, no one can do that.
Mine does not. When you have an organization that systematically and predictably produces 'shoddy journalism' that supports a particular political line, and only remembers those standards when it comes to stories that do not support that line, I'm going to call that a fake news organization, and I don't really care about the unknowable mental states of those involved. Whether they are doing this as a conscious tactic or as a result of self-inflicted brain damage doesn't matter much. That self-inflicted brain damage would still represent a conscious choice that ultimately led to reporting falsehoods, it's just one level removed compared to concious-in-the-moment lying anyway.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday June 27 2017, @10:35PM
Whatever.
I'm sticking with this:
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=20269&page=1&cid=532147#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
What you believe is up to you. Good luck with that.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 28 2017, @09:44AM
You don't need to see in someone's heart to find out his intentions. If that were necessary, courts would be in deep trouble.
But yes, it means that sometimes you do not know whether a specific story was fake news or just bad journalism. But that's not a problem with definitions, that's just a fact of life. But if you are accuse someone or some organization of fake news without clear evidence of intent, you are not the slightest bit better than those bad journalists (and by your own standards, you would have to consider yourself generating fake news).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 28 2017, @03:31PM
Pizzagate is one example of fake news.
Pizzagate is is just the Jeffrey Epstein story with a twist. The politicians are pervs of the worst kind. But because of the 'fake news' narrative, they will never be seriously investigated. Which is why the narrative was invented to begin with, to protect these kinds of people.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday June 27 2017, @05:30PM (2 children)
And, has Breitbart retracted the pizzagate story yet?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2017, @06:37PM (1 child)
If you're suggesting that CNN and Breitbart are equivalent, I would tend to agree.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by jimtheowl on Wednesday June 28 2017, @01:52AM
The whole point is that Breitbart never corrects the harm they cause. CNN may be biased, but they did retract.