WaPo Attacks Conservatives For ‘Tainting’ The Term “Fake News”
Margaret Sullivan of The Washington Post wrote an article on Sunday titled It’s time to retire the tainted term ‘fake news’ in which she attacks conservatives for allegedly tainting the term “fake news”.
She begins her article by making multiple attacks on conservatives who used the term against opponents.
From the Article:
When Jim DeMint [Republican] wanted to dis a TV interviewer’s suggestion that Obamacare has merits as well as flaws, the former senator and tea partyer used a handy putdown: “You can put all that under the category of fake news.”
When conspiracy theorist Alex Jones [Conservative, Founder of Infowars] wanted to deny a CNN report that Ivanka Trump would take over the East Wing offices traditionally occupied by the first lady, he used the same label.
And when a writer for an arch-conservative website needed a putdown for ABC’s chief White House correspondent Jonathan Karl, he reached for the obvious: “fake-news propagandist.”…
…The one falsely claiming that Pope Francis had endorsed Donald Trump, or the one alleging without basis that Hillary Clinton would be indicted just before the election.
She goes on to say that the meaning of the term “fake news” has changed.
…the label has been co-opted to mean any number of completely different things: Liberal claptrap. Or opinion from left-of-center. Or simply anything in the realm of news that the observer doesn’t like to hear…
…As Jeremy Peters wrote in the New York Times: “Conservative cable and radio personalities, top Republicans and even Mr. Trump himself . . . have appropriated the term and turned it against any news they see as hostile to their agenda.”
Notice how two of the three definitions she gave indicated that the term has been distorted to attacking the left before finally saying that it can be in the realm of news that the observer doesn’t like to hear.
The article was a very clear hit on conservatives who according to a recent Gallup poll outnumber liberals in the U.S. by 11% .
That’s why liberals want to retire the term “fake news” – because it’s come back to bite them.
