Hmmm....is this a fake news article??

[CathyA]

A friend of mine sent me this. I couldn't find it anywhere else on any new site. Seems like it would be all over the news, if it were true. Fake news??

https://www.yahoo.com/news/pipeline-spills-176-000-gallons-oil-north-dakota-170154029.html

[Chicken lady]

Nbc covered it.

[CathyA]

Was it on the morning news? I find it strange that it hasn't gotten more press.

[Zoe Girl]

I have been following a lot on the pipeline protest and other pipeline issues, they don't tend to get a lot of press.

[ApatheticNoMore]

Isn't oil always spilling all over the place? I mean oil leaks are very common it seems, though not all local of course. There's probably less actual fake news (not that some stuff isn't fake of course) than there is news they barely cover.

[Chicken lady]

It leaked, they caught it, it didn't get in the drinking water, it's contained, ho hum.... But hey! Some celebrity talked to trump!

the money is in telling people about what they already care about, not in trying to tell them what they should care about.

the guardian picked up the story too.

[creaker]

A friend of mine sent me this. I couldn't find it anywhere else on any new site. Seems like it would be all over the news, if it were true. Fake news??

https://www.yahoo.com/news/pipeline-spills-176-000-gallons-oil-north-dakota-170154029.html

That would be a little scary - it's an AP story. If Associated Press is publishing fake news a good chunk of everything we get for news is fake.

There is another kind of "fake" news - when news is excluded. Democracy Now was covering Standing Rock weeks before mainstream media picked it up. A lie by omission is still a lie.

[Tybee]

This "fake news" narrative seems nothing but an attempt for the Google/NYT/WaP etc. to imperil free speech and become the American Pravda. Since NYT seems to have specialized in fake news over the election year, with HRC having a what, 90% chance of winning the election, and printing whatever the Pod told them, I am not buying this narrative anymore.

[CathyA]

Strange.......I saw another article about it and it was down from 179,000 gallons to about 4,000. Hmmm.... It's getting harder and harder to find truth anywhere. :(

[Suzanne]

Cathy, I think you may have misunderstood. The figure of 4,600 is barrels of oil. That's still 179,000 gallons of oil.

[Suzanne]

Chicken lady, most of the oil is still under the frozen creek, and no recovery attempts will be made till the thaw. In the meantime, oil may well be seeping its way downstream toward human drinking water supplies. It's probably also killing a large number of aquatic organisms as well as fouling spawning beds. There are serious environmental concerns beyond human drinking water.

[early morning]

Since NYT seems to have specialized in fake news over the election year, with HRC having a what, 90% chance of winning the election, How in heaven's name would this be "fake" news?? An incorrect prediction, perhaps - but she DID win the popular vote, with over 2 million more votes than Trump. Do you accept only the "news" you want to hear? Do you believe everything that comes out of someone's mouth, or is printed online? Are you aware that there is a verified fake news industry out there:
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/fake-news-how-partying-macedonian-teen-earns-thousands-publishing-lies-n692451
Buzzfeed reported on it this fall, but the mainstream media now seems to have "discovered" it. Don't believe everything you hear, just because you agree!

[Tybee]

If you read the Podesta emails, there are several instances where news media is taking its marching orders from the campaign. I think in those instances, you are reading fake news.

Here's another source of concern for me:

http://www.accuracy.org/release/cia-cloud-over-jeff-bezoss-washington-post/

So it seems to me that Bezos has a real conflict of interest here, and he owns the Post.

Thus leading to the potential for fake news.

Anyway, that's the way I see it, and why. You obviously have a different view, and I appreciate that. I think we can just agree to disagree.

[Chicken lady]

Suzanne, that was not me being cavalier, that was me mocking the general response to the leak.

[CathyA]

Cathy, I think you may have misunderstood. The figure of 4,600 is barrels of oil. That's still 179,000 gallons of oil.

Suzanne.....you're right. I misunderstood that in one article they were talking about gallons and in the next it was about barrels. Still, a horrible accident that was true. :( The damage potential is always great with an oil leak.

[ApatheticNoMore]

The whole fake news meme, which I might try to give more benefit of the doubt if it was so, would be more believable if legitimate news sources weren't being slammed as "fake news" recently. That almost discredits the fake news meme itself. If the fake news meme wanted to discredit itself it couldn't do a better job! When most legitimate sources of real criticism of the status quo get slammed as fake news (in some cases the kind of sources that have been consistently right over the decades when the MSM wasn't about the whole lies and folly of the Iraq war for instance. So places that have EARNED high credibility by virtue of having seen through the lies and been right (even though you should trust nothing entirely) are suddenly "fake news".

Of course just because things are falsely being accused of being fake news does not of course mean fake news does not exist (will the real fake news please stand up). But I think the term has become too broad to be meaningful. What seems to be going on is legitimate sources of information (again trust nothing entirely) are being slammed as fake news, meanwhile actual fake news does exist but it is uncertain at all how broad it's influence is or how many people are paying any attention to it.

Meanwhile so called legitimate sources like the AP whom I don't think is necessarily making up news all the time or anything, completely ILLEGITIMATELY interfere with democratic elections in attempts to sabotage them that are worthy of any Putin (if Putin does indeed interfere). Right here in the U.S.. Posting stories that Clinton had won based on pretty much nothing right before the California primary was unethical in the EXTREME. It was an attempt to throw an election (whether the results would have been the same regardless does not negate that it was an unethical attempt to influence an election). I was just shocked when that happened.

On a separate topic: CIA influence. Yea the CIA influences media at times, no I don't know when they are doing so, but it's well documented. Truthfully I suspect the CIA has done much to shape modern American political understanding but that all dates back to mid last century. It seems they funded gobs of people from Arthur Schlesinger, to Hannah Arendt, to George Orwell (really), to lightweights like Gloria Steinem. And I could be wrong on this. Ack fake news! Yea I go by what seems to be the best understanding I have at anything at the moment. But if the CIA can fund and still not totally corrupt the message maybe so can Russian intelligence, but that's different that just making up facts out of whole cloth like maybe Dmitri does.

And as per the story Dmitry isn't even getting funding from Russia but from Trump supporters - way way way too much stuff is being conflated lately - fake news, real criticism, leak sites (wikileaks), Russian backing etc. when the connections seem tenuous or just not there period.

[JaneV2.0]

I think when you see a bunch of stories about Ms. Clinton being a serial killer or a drug runner, with juicy details, you can pretty much assume it's fake news.

[Tybee]

I think when you see a bunch of stories about Ms. Clinton being a serial killer or a drug runner, with juicy details, you can pretty much assume it's fake news.

Similarly, when you watch a presidential debate, when the questions have been secretly fed to the candidate in advance, you can pretty much assume you are watching fake news.