The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
‘Fake news’ has always been here
In the 1960s, my family would sit around the television to watch the nightly news hour. Many historians describe the three network news hours as the Golden Age of Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley. We were dedicated to watching the CBS network channel with the news anchor Walter Cronkite. Back then, there was no doubt that Cronkite was reporting the news in an object manner. He spoke with an authoritative tone and no one questioned the facts of his stories. Cronkite ended each program with the saying: “And that’s the way it is.”
In the 1970s, the Federal Communication Commission began to deregulate the broadcasting networks, paving the way to the elimination of the divide between news and entertainment. Tabloid news shows, like A Current Affair, blended news and entertainment. By the end of the 1970s, tabloid news programming became a significant revenue source for the networks. The more dramatic and colorful the tabloids became, the greater its profits.
In the 1980s, cable television gave rise to the creation of CNN — the first network to bring you 24-hour live coverage. CNN not only reported the news, it became an interactive force that shaped and created the news in real time. With the replacement of the anchor person with “commentators” and “hosts,” the divide between truth and fiction began to blur further.
The 1990s saw the rise of several different 24-hour news channels. Each station tried to find its own niche in order to gain market share. For example, Fox News viewed the world from the political right, MSNBC and CNN more from the left. Networks no longer presented different perspectives of one reality, but different realities, based upon their respective political orientation. The age of positivism — where we all shared a fact-based common black and white existence — has disintegrated into negative relativism, where different realities were strategic constructs devised by the networks to promote ideological agendas.
The 2000s saw the arrival of social media whereby individuals were now able to construct personalized realities. With a little bit of tech savvy, operatives were able to have their agendas go “viral” and target mass audiences. While social media has many positive applications, it also has a dark side in terms of its vulnerability to construct devious realities of lies and untruths. The internet’s ability to spread antisocial propaganda as well as harmful and infectious viruses has
Fake news is not the opposite of real news, but rather the rewriting of history to promote one’s own personal agenda. What is right or true has become replaced with who can shout or name-call the loudest.
reached epidemic proportions. The news was no longer at home on your television, but it was now in the palm of your hand, followed you where ever you went, and was streaming 24/7. Like the Wild West, the web had no regulations, ideas flew around from who knows where with no sense of authenticity or legitimacy. Anybody can make news; even my friend Carla, by letting the world know on Facebook that she had meatloaf for dinner.
While Donald Trump was not a seasoned politician, he was in fact an accomplished Reality TV celebrity. He was well-schooled in the art of selfpromotion and social media. For Trump, what is right or wrong does not matter, what counts is how many clicks, and how much attention you get from your targeted audience.
It was Donald Trump who invented the concept of “fake news.” Contrary to what the names implies, fake news does not signify news that is disingenuous. Rather it is a political tool utilized by a politician to destroy and suppress their opponent’s viewpoint, regardless of the validity of their arguments. Fake news is not the opposite of real news, but rather the rewriting of history to promote one’s own personal agenda. In Reality TV, truth is not determined by facts, but rather “the art of persuasion.” What is right or true has become replaced with who can shout or name-call the loudest, fastest and most often.
Fake news has always been around. In previous times, it was referred to as propaganda. What makes fake news unique and different this time around is the existence of social media — the internet’s ability to quickly spread propaganda worldwide in nanoseconds.
In the year 2020, as I sit on the couch in front of the TV with my iPad in my lap and the remote in my hand, I find myself surfing multiple sites in desperation to hear someone say “and that is the way it is,” rather than, this is the way I want you to think it is.