Last week there was a rather big election in the USA. The supporters of the losing candidate have spent every waking moment since, it seems, trying to find anybody to blame for the victory of the other side.
Except themselves, of course.
One of those targets has been “fake news sites.”
A quick look on the subreddit r/the_Donald shows that in amongst real stories there are many, many fake news stories, and it these types of story that are being blamed for Trump’s victory at the moment.
And Facebook for not censoring them.
Google is even talking about removing these fake news sites from its Ad Sense system.
These sites range from large Christian themed news aggregators to blogs to faux wikis.
But if you read the BBC article and the articles of other traditional news websites, they are covering this story but instead of using the fake, dishonest sites to illustrate they are using screen-caps of NewsThump and Southend News Network and yes, The Rochdale Herald.
Look into it though and it is clear that these satire sites ARE NOT being blamed- indeed it could be argued that they did a better job of informing the public than the BBC et al did. Yet they are being used to illustrate this story as if they are the sites being covered by the story.
To be clear, this controversy is about fake news sites: it is sites such as WND (often referred to as Wing Nut Daily rather than its real “World News Daily” title) and their ilk -sites who report bias and lie as fact; well more so than even the mainstream does- and NOT satire sites such as The Herald or Newsthump or SNN.
Sites who report bias and lie as fact- well more so than even the mainstream does.
Now, perhaps all these traditional, well-paid journalists at the BBC and British newspapers’ sites simply haven’t properly researched their articles and are not themselves deliberately trying to mislead you into thinking that this scandal is about satire sites.
Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt here.
But if they’re not getting even this right, how much can you trust what they say about other things?
Nobody pays us at the Rochdale Herald. The advertising revenue keeps us ticking along if we’re lucky but we’re not making money. The same is true of Southend News Network and though Newsthump might be getting a bit more, they’re not getting rich. And if they are then good, they bloody deserve it.
If people start thinking that satire sites- those who held up the biggest mirror to Trump and Clinton- are bad and evil, then it won’t take much for us to disappear. We really rely on those clicks.
Don’t let the (ironically real) news sites convince you that this controversy is about satire, instead ask why they might want you to think that.
