UN President Joe Biden and former US President Donald Trump. Photo: PC.
By Ramzy Baroud – Apr 3, 2023
The phrase âfake newsâ continues to be deployed routinely in US politics. In a polarized political atmosphere, both Republicans and Democrats distrust media organizations affiliated with opposing parties. This means that most of what is uttered or written by CNN is âfake newsâ for Republicans, and much of what appears in Republicans-affiliated media is âfake newsâ for Democrats.
The phrase is now so prevalent and has multiple meanings to the point that it is impossible to agree on a common definition. Even âfact checkingâ organizations or news desks contribute to the troubling phenomenon of âfake newsâ by selectively fact-checking news and information affiliated with one side of the political aisle, while ignoring the other.
Some traced the âfake newsâ story to a small Eastern European town called Veles, in Macedonia. This particular claim is associated with Craig Silverman, a media editor at Buzzfeed. âWe ended up finding a small cluster of news websites all registered in the same town,â Silverman was quoted by the BBC. The objective of these websites seemed mostly financial, âclickbaitâ as they are called, to lure in unsuspecting users to seemingly unlikely headlines.
Later, the term became very political. It was former US President Donald Trump who publicized the term, making it the major phenomenon seen today. Mike Wendling of the BBC, however, claimed that it was Trumpâs staunch rival in the 2016 US Presidential elections, Hillary Clinton, who first used the term in a speech in December of the same year.
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Actually, âfake newsâ predates both Clinton and Trump. When I first moved to the US over two decades ago, I recall my total shock at seeing the headlines of print tabloids, always positioned at the center of major US grocery stores: From unsubstantiated celebrity scandals, to âbreaking newsâ about aliens impregnating human females before returning to their home planet. Even as a newcomer to the country, it was obvious to me that such rubbish was also âfake newsâ. Sadly, these tabloids were often sold faster than legitimate newspapers, which suggests that the biggest challenge posed by âfake newsâ is our gullibility and willingness to engage with it.
In the modern definition, âfake newsâ has grown to also include people with opposing opinions, whether these opinions are based on facts, selective facts or utter fiction. Many of us, as journalists, are caught in this impossible labyrinth. No matter what we do to demonstrate the authenticity of our sources, we continue to be haunted by âfake newsâ allegations.
The generational struggle for independent media organizations and journalists has been the constant push to create as much space as possible between them and the whims of politics and politicians. Recently, however, such a distance has shrunk significantly to the point that once-respected news organizations in the US have turned into the equivalent of political party pamphlets of old.
In 2018, Trump announced his âFake News Awardsâ, to be âgrantedâ to journalists in liberal media organizations that opposed him. Fact-checkers of these organizations have dogged him, ever since. His âinformationâ and often exaggerated statements made him the perfect target. Joe Biden is hardly held to the same standards, not only for allegedly making false statements but, sometimes, for what appears to be more gibberish than proper English. Though Bidenâs funny memes, based on declarations made in various public appearances, are stable on social media, they are rarely examined by respected news outlets.
But can we trust mainstream media in their application of the phrase âfake newsâ?
Noam Chomsky, one of the most articulate critics of mainstream US media and the author of âManufacturing Consent,â defined mainstream media as âcorporations (which) are basically tyrannies, hierarchic, controlled from above. If you donât like what they are doing you get out. The major media are just part of that system.â
Chomskyâs analysis suggests that those who make accusations of âfake newsâ can themselves be the purveyors of âfake newsâ, if such information conveniently serves those who control these organizations âfrom aboveâ, especially as âmost of them are either linked to, or outright owned by, much bigger corporationsâ.
For us in the Global South, falsified information did not originate from the small town of Veles in Macedonia, or with Clintonâs speech or Trumpâs âawards.â âFake newsâ has been part and parcel of western colonialism, from its onset centuries ago, to neocolonialism of recent times.
Back then, the lies that often led to wars, invasions and military occupations were not called âfake newsâ but âfalse flagâ operations. Many historians now understand that the casus belli behind the Spanish-American war in 1898 â the explosion of the US battleship, USS Maine â was based on a lie, or âfake newsâ. Iraqâs non-existent so-called weapons of mass destruction, which led to the invasion of the once-powerful Arab country in 2003 was also fake news, involving made-up stories of uranium yellowcake from Niger and the dodgy âsecret British dossierâ, and other fibs.
Palestine was invaded by Zionists based entirely on âfake newsâ, claiming that the land â historic Palestine â had no inhabitants â âLand without a people ..â. The Palestine-linked âfake newsâ is arguably the most powerful of any colonial lie. CNN fact-checkers hardly bother to prove that God did not âpromiseâ Palestine to the Zionists and that Palestinians are not the aggressors, but the victims of Zionist-western settler-colonialism.
It behooves us all to expand the definition of âfake newsâ beyond the US-western-centric purely political definitions waged by Republicans against Democrats and vice-versa. Lies, deceit, half-truths, misinformation and outright âfake newsâ have been the driving force behind corporate media reporting for many years. It is now becoming more obvious simply because those manipulating the media discourse âfrom aboveâ are losing control over their own narratives.
Ramzy Baroud
Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is âThese Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisonsâ (Clarity Press). Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). His website is www.ramzybaroud.netÂ
