Selling Counterfeit News

"I am thinking about changing the name #FakeNews CNN
to #FraudNewsCNN!"      - DJT Tweet
 
The term 'Fake News' is not accurate.
 
It implies that someone is preparing news stories that pretend to be accurate, that are imitations of the real story. The news industry has some pretenders, for sure. And make no mistake, many of the stories appearing on CNN, CNBC, CBS, and other mainstream channels are not accurate or unbiased.
 
But fake? I think not. And now our President appears to agree with me.
 
I think the term was popularized by Donald Trump during the 2016 Presidential campaign. He was pointing out how the press selectively focused on certain aspects of stories, to support their Progressive political narrative. He was correct, but he used the wrong term to characterize the problem. He chose the term because it resonated and it was a simplification of a fairly complicated issue.
 
But what CNN and others were doing was not faking news, they were politicizing it. Just as college professors can inculcate their students by selectively feeding them only information that supports their political persuasion, the news media can also change perceptions by including, or selectively excluding vital information and subtle messages of body language, facial inflection, and sound.
 
It is lying by exclusion. It's selective editing, or doctoring. But it is not Fake, which would imply that the issue is unreal. Most of the stories that CNN misrepresents are to some degree or another real (except maybe the Russian collusion story that was concocted by the DNC and used by the 4th Estate to gin up ratings and newspaper sales).

When CNN activist/commentator Van Jones was quoted as saying the Russain issue was a "big nothing burger" he was correct. But that was never conveyed to the CNN audience, so in that case the story was actually Fake. But the dossier that suppossedly proved Trump was not only in collusion with the Russians but was also a sexual deviant wasn't fake, it was a forgery. It was conterfeit. It was pure fiction. It is fraud!
 
When your tax man asks you, did you use your home as an office? You think, oh, that means I can get a reduction in my tax obligation if I can claim my house is a business expense? So you say, 'Of course!' Then he tells you that you can only take a small percentage of your mortgage payment, since the house serves as your primary residence, not your business operations office.
 
But what if he failed to mention that fact? Or what if he never even asked you about the home office? Either way, he would be lying by ommission because he knows that there is a deduction available but is, for whatever reason, not informing you. So you lose a legal deduction, or conversely you submit a claim that is too high, and you are now a victim of his lack of professionalism.
 
If he did it on purpose, to put you at risk of being audited, then that would be not only unprofessional, it would be disengenuous and an attack on your credibility and your financial stability. And then the IRS steps in and what started out as a little white lie may well reveal much bigger deductions that cannot be properly documented (i.e., those donations to Salvation Army, to your church, etc.).
 
But what if he inserted huge deductions, such as claiming your entire mortgage payment as a business expense, when he knew it was not legitimate, and never informed you that he did that? That would be illegal, unprofessional and put you at risk of income tax evasion litigation. He would be direlict of his fudiciary duty to keep you informed about the legal obligations you have to make proper tax payments.  And he would be committing fraud.
 
That would be what too many journalists are doing today, because they have decided it is their job to decide what deductions should be legal (even when they are not), and to put your right to know the facts at risk. They have appointed themselves the 'guardians of knowledge', because in their own selfrighteous way, they think they are doing us all a service.
 
That makes it an entirely different thing than faking something. Making a look-a-like Armani purse is illegal because it uses the product and intellectual property rights of the Armani company illegally. That is forgery. The purse is fake, but the crime is forgery, theft of intellectual property and receiving revenue from that crime.
 
But producing a news story that omits certain aspects, or emphasizes certain elements over others, is not faking something, it is altering it, making it something it never was. That is manufacturing a falsehood, or committing journalistic fraud.  And to a large degree, the crime is compounded by the fact that the inflammatory story attracts paying viewers, increases ratings and ad revenues, all based on the fraudulent information cooked up by the editors.

CNN is selling you an 'Armani' purse, manufactured in their newsroom.
 
So I contend what CNN, and to a large degree, many other news organizations have been doing recently, is not faking news. It is forging information, which is no different than altering documents, such as a driver's license or a loan application. It is illegal, as it should be. But it is also incredibly difficult to police because the 4th Estate enjoys an enormous aura of protection from censorship. This broad discretion is what allows organizations like CNN or MSNBC to use their podium to affect perceptions.
 
In an offhand comment Wednesday on Morning Joe (MSNBC), co-host Mika Brzezinski said that it was the media’s job to “control exactly what people think.” The comments are being spread as an example of the hubris and arrogance of the mainstream media.  - The Blaze
 
If we cannot count on the intellectual honesty, or at least the effort to be honest, by major news organizations in America, than we, as a nation, have already lost too much of our intellectual and historical integrity.
 
The problem is the news counterfeiters are not concientiously aware of their bias. They are convinced that they are intellectually more informed, more relevant and therefore more honest than opposing organizations and individuals, so they are justified in 'baking' the cake as they see fit. They are, as I described in my book, Turn Right At Lost: Recalculating America, full of Misinformed Certitude.
 
Have you ever known an adult that never goes into the water because they are so convinced that they would drown? They are terrified of drowning, so by never going into the ocean or a pool, they are reinforcing their own irrationality. No matter how much we all know they will float, and usually dog paddle enough to stay afloat, they remain unable to swim for their entire life!
 
How sad it is to live your entire life without ever experiencing the freedom of swimming. For too many Progressives, they are trapped in their own politically paralyzed minds by the fear of having to compete, of learning to be accountable to yourself, that they will never experience the pure joy and intellectual freedom of political independence and self dependency. It is much easier to 'feel' than to 'think' because in order to think, you have to process information, some of which may be uncomfortable.
 
The problems with media 'misinformation' are compounding our clash of cultures worldwide, and seriously disrupting our national discourse and our ability to function as a democratic republic. The recent revelations about CNN's corporate support of counterfeiting the news illustrates just how misguided much of the mainstream media has become.