Few days ago, the left-stream media and Obama have raised a ruckus about “fake news,” which they blamed for their election loss. The ruckus boils down to two allegations: a) conservatives produce fake news, and b) conservatives tend to believe fake news. But a closer look proves both allegations wrong. Instead, misinformation is shown to be the province of the Left, and nearly indispensable part of a modern liberal education.
The ruckus started with an NPR article, We Tracked Down a Fake-News Creator In The Suburbs. Here’s What We Learned. NPR interviewed the founder and owner of an official fake news media company Disinfomedia, Jestin Coler. Coler is a journalist, political science major, and a self-professed liberal. He lives in a suburb of Los Angeles. “My educational background is in political science. I’ve always enjoyed the ideas of propaganda and misinformation,” Coler said.
The fake news, produced by his media company, were intended to appeal to conservatives. This is how Coler explained that choice: “The whole idea from the start was to build a site that could infiltrate the echo chambers of the alt-right, publish blatantly false or fictional stories and then be able to publicly denounce those stories and point out the fact that they were fiction.”
According to the article, Coler’s company had 20-25 writers, and had multiple competitors. Thus, it is likely that the alleged “echo chambers of the alt-right” consist mostly of leftists, posing as right-wing extremists for fun and profit.
The article’s punchline is this statement from Coler: “We’ve tried to do similar things to liberals. It just has never worked, it never takes off. You’ll get debunked within the first two comments and then the whole thing just kind of fizzles out.” NPR and the rest of the leftist echo-chamber interpret that as a sign that liberals are smarter than conservatives. No, the reason is quite different: the market for fake news with liberal appeal is already glutted by what used to be the mainstream media. Tiny outlets like Disinfomedia cannot compete against The Guardian, Rolling Stone, and even moderate news outlets.
Universities produce far too many graduates whose only skills are propaganda and disinformation, which they acquired while being indoctrinated with leftist ideology. Only few such “scholars” find employment in the left-stream and left-extreme media. Some of them become “science reporters” with the government or government-financed entities. Coler, his competitors, and their writers found their niche in producing fake news with conservative appeal. That does not make them conservatives.
There is, however, a grain of truth to this story: conservatives are too gullible when they read or watch what used to be the mainstream media.
2016-12-09 Update: Independent.co.uk falsely claimed that Trump has changed his views on the so-called “climate change,” then announced that Trump did two U-turns!