This journalism thingie has gotten so easy, anyone can do it. Let\u2019s play make the fake news funtime!<\/p>\n
The elderly may remember the Old Journalism. Back in BT (Before Trump) journalists in mainstream outlets had to gather facts (i.e., true things) from sources (people with names who knew true things) that would withstand fact-checking (looking stuff up, or having a second source confirm stuff.) If you quoted something already established as a fact, you were obligated to link to it.<\/p>\n
There were notably exceptions. For example, in 2003, the New York Times<\/i> simply \u201cbelieved\u201d everything it was told about Iraq having massive destructive weapons and typed it into the paper. FYI: The Times<\/i> assisted in generating enthusiasm for the Iraq invasion, helping kill 5,000 Americans and perhaps one million Iraqis! Media such as the National Enquirer<\/i> and gossip blogs would just make things up, aliens and Bigfoot and all that, but it was with a wink and everyone knew it was fake and for fun.<\/p>\n
Then Shazaam! Every media in America miscalled the election for Clinton while Trump won. Media collectively got a sad. They did not know what to do. Certainly admitting they screwed up was not in the cards, nor was accepting that Trump won and moving on. So, they invented Newer Journalism.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It works this way. A reporter, say from the Washington Post<\/i>, calls up someone who works at say, the State Department, or is called by someone who wants to leak something. It is always bad news about Trump. The reporter types it up word-for-word, and then publishes it to the world as a true thing. In the story the source is anonymous, so no one knows if the reporter spoke to an intern on her third day, or just made it all up. But, and this is important, that doesn\u2019t matter! All that matters is that it is bad news, the more bombastic the better.<\/p>\n
From there other media simply repeat the story. But it gets better, because the next media in line says \u201cThe Washington Post<\/i> reports sources inside the Trump administration say\u2026\u201d allowing some crappy blog to inherit whatever credibility the WaPo<\/i> still clings to. But, and this is important, that doesn\u2019t matter! Because the article will be saying something readers want to believe (\u201cWhite House policy making is in disarray, everyone will resign by Thursday.\u201d)<\/p>\n
Now Thursday will roll around and everyone has not resigned, but, and this is important, that doesn\u2019t matter! The media has moved on to the next story and who the hell goes back and reads last week\u2019s Tweets anyway. Repeat.<\/p>\n
The way Trump is being covered reminds me of so-called reporting out of North Korea, or the Cold War Soviet Union. Reporters claimed they could not reveal their sources, and every tiny scrap of an event was inflated into Deep Meaning. Every story warned of catastrophic consequences to follow, that never did. But that\u2019s what Americans wanted to believe about those two countries, and it sold (in those days) newspapers.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
So let\u2019s try it. Keep in mind this is entirely made up, especially if you see it reprinted on Rawstory<\/i> or HuffPo<\/i> as fact.<\/p>\n
Sources inside the State Department who are otherwise not authorized to speak to the media report that rank-and-file diplomats remain dismayed at the treatment given them by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Many are quietly talking about ways to resist, some even going as far as suggesting mass resignations may occur. Some liken it to a Constitutional crisis that could upset an already fragile democracy.<\/p>\n
The diplomats \u2013 many of whom signed the recent letter of dissent over Trump\u2019s Muslim Ban \u2013 claim that Tillerson has not held a full staff meeting since taking office, preferring to work only with a tight circle of advisors from the campaign whom he has dubbed the \u201cTrump Centaurians.\u201d These Centurians have been described as politically motivated, watching Tweets out of the White House for policy guidance.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have no idea what they are doing,\u201d said one senior diplomat. \u201cThese are people with zero experience inside government talking down to experienced Russia hands in my office. One of these so-called Centaurians used to work for Ivanka\u2019s clothing line. God help us, she\u2019s now in charge of energy policy across the MidEast. It is chaos, pure chaos. Period. Full stop.\u201d<\/p>\n
In response to Tillerson, State Department officials have begun to slow-walk requests from the Secretary\u2019s office, with some going as far as withholding information for fear it might be shared with the Kremlin. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t be surprised to see a bunch of people go critical and simply punch out one day,\u201d stated another seasoned diplomat. \u201cAnd I\u2019m hearing the same thing from friends inside the NSC. I\u2019ve never seen it this bad before, and it\u2019ll get worse.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tillerson\u2019s office did not immediately return a request for comment.<\/p>\n
See? That took me about ten minutes to crank out. Lunchtime.<\/p>\n
Peter Van Buren blew the whistle on State Department waste and mismanagement during Iraqi reconstruction in his first book, <\/i>We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People<\/a>. His latest book is <\/i>Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the #99 Percent<\/a>. Reprinted from the his blog<\/a> with permission.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This journalism thingie has gotten so easy, anyone can do it. Let\u2019s play make the fake news funtime! The elderly may remember the Old Journalism. Back in BT (Before Trump) journalists in mainstream outlets had to gather facts (i.e., true things) from sources (people with names who knew true things) that would withstand fact-checking (looking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":212,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-28339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/212"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28339"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28342,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28339\/revisions\/28342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28339"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=28339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}