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"Fake news" is the last gasp of a dying media establishment who are trying with all their fervor to convince the public of their own necessity. The fact is that

"Fake news" is the last gasp of a dying media establishment who are trying with all their fervor to convince the public of their own necessity. The fact is that in an age where technology has enabled us to communicate instantaneously across the globe and watch events play out ourselves, news media is largely irrelevant. We don't need an embedded reporter on the other side of the planet anymore, because the people there will be tweeting it out. The last several major news events for which I had access to cable television immediately devolved into "watch news anchors read Twitter". This was true of the Dallas riots and the Turkey coup last summer. There were several minutes straight of "this is a tweet from someone nearby...", interrupted only by commercial breaks and commentary, not real reporting. There are several YouTube channels that get more daily viewers than television channels. PewDiePie has over 50 million subscribers. The rising generation grew up accessing any content they wanted on-demand and does not understand a world of scheduled television programming. CNN is quickly becoming grandpa's way to get news. The traditional news media has been disrupted and outmoded, and "fake news" is their temper tantrum, their attempt to stay relevant. The old broadcast media establishment has lost their influence, and they will not go quietly into the night. It's sad and ironic that Google's political agenda is causing them to betray their users. We need aggressive market-equalizing reform.

fucking_tragedy 10y ago
There is quality journalism out there that goes above and beyond "some guy on twitter took a pic of what was happening". If you're married to the concept of outsider journalism, the citizen journalist website bellingcat is pretty good. A lot of well educated and traveled people have contributed. The quality of content is above a tweet. However, the reason you see news anchors reading tweets is not because there isn't a better source of content than tweets, it's the idea that tweets are what people want to see. Viewer engagement in an interactive age. It's part of Twitter's strategy, as well.

fucking_tragedy 10y ago

There is quality journalism out there that goes above and beyond "some guy on twitter took a pic of what was happening". If you're married to the concept of outsider journalism, the citizen journalist website bellingcat is pretty good. A lot of well educated and traveled people have contributed. The quality of content is above a tweet. However, the reason you see news anchors reading tweets is not because there isn't a better source of content than tweets, it's the idea that tweets are what people want to see. Viewer engagement in an interactive age. It's part of Twitter's strategy, as well.