Since President-elect Donald Trump defeated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the general election, the mainstream media have been on a witch hunt against the “fake news” that they claim is the reason Trump won.
Ironically enough, many mainstream media sites themselves have published “fake news,” including The Washington Post, which one of the most recognized names in news, The Intercept noted.
The Post ran an article titled “Russian Propaganda Effort Helped Spread ‘Fake News’ During Election, Experts Say,” but has since had to include an editor’s note on the article distancing itself from those so-called “experts.”
The article cited an anonymous website called “PropOrNot” which compiled a list of websites that it claimed were spreading fake news and possibly influenced by the Russian government.
The only problem was that there was not a shred of actual proof to back these claims. Basically a website threw together a list of alternative media sites and claimed they were fake — and The Washington Post decided that it was good enough to run with.
That’s pretty low, even by their standards.
“The Post, which did not name any of the sites, does not itself vouch for the validity of PropOrNot’s findings regarding any individual media outlet, nor did the article purport to do so. Since publication of The Post’s story, PropOrNot has removed some sites from its list,” read part of the editor’s note on The Post’s story.
The liberal media really need to watch out. They started this whole mess about “fake news” by criticizing sites like Breitbart and Conservative Tribune — but now they are the ones having to retract stories because of shoddy journalism and a lack of evidence.
Perhaps these liberal media organizations should focus on cleaning up their own content first, then worry about trying to smear alternative media sites that have a better track record than they do.
(via: Conservative Tribune)
