Here's a story that invites thought about 'Fake News' ... Court revives suit alleging Fox News inflicted 'emotional torture' on Seth Rich family

If Rich thumbdrived those emails to Assange and Billy’s people needed Trump’s “Russia” to have over-the-internet hacked those emails (and also Rich needed punishing) and so they murdered him, would they also be morally and organizationally capable of blackmailing his family and pressing a lawsuit against Fox?

Or Billy and his people are falling for yet another trick, pushing this story for us, we are protecting the family, lawsuit our doing, just a way to introduce evidence into the courts and show the world more truths.

Please continue pushing this one Billy, hard and everywhere.

Your audience is totally buying that all you leftie dingbats are genuinely fired up about a report on Fox in the middle of 2017 that has terribly victimized a family. Nothing causes emotional trauma quite like a suggestion that your son was a hero whistleblower assassinated by Killery, not randomly victimized by members of the street gang MS-13. Who could go on living after hearing that 1st amendment protected suggestion? They are so brave. The D.C. Police said it was gang bangers and there is so much serenity in that. Then those meanie emotionally abusive Fox people said it wouldn't have been Killery's first hit and now the family can't go on emotionally without some Fox cash and all of you progressives are right there with them, oh it just takes my breath away! This is the winner.

7 hours ago, Jon Letendre said:

Or Billy and his people are falling for yet another trick, pushing this story for us, we are protecting the family, lawsuit our doing, just a way to introduce evidence into the courts and show the world more truths.

At your leisure of course, but do kindly put the star recommendation badge on the above comment, Billy.

The book is fairly breezy in style, but I am only slowly getting my money's worth -- I tend to read non-fiction in a non-linear manner first, using the table of contents, index, notes and 'key words' to direct my initial foray. Slow readers of the world, unite!

Here's one of my favourite passages so far (on page 45, chapter "Fake News as Phenomena"):

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Is The Furore Over Fake News Yet Another Moral Panic?

With all the attention paid to the fake news phenomenon -- especially the gloomy predictions that the world may be heading into some kind of post-truth dark ages in which science, reason, and facts no longer matter -- it is worth asking if all the hand-wringing is no more than another moral panic that will soon burn out and be remembered, if at all, with embarrassment and, possibly, shame?

As pointed out several times in this chapter, neither fake news nor propaganda are new phenomena. And even though the harm caused by propaganda has it times in history been devastating (as happened in Nazi Germany), free and democratic societies generally right themselves before allowing propaganda to take them completely over the edge. The existence of propaganda, though a risk, does not necessarily spell doom for society.

Similarly, while people can, and often do, debate the role of fake news in increasing the polarization of society, the existence of a polarized society itself is nothing new. Looking at the history of the United States, events like the Revolutionary War and the Civil War were more than polarizing disagreements -- they were bloody conflicts that divided society into armed camps. Literally. Until the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States was quite polarized when it came to whether the country should get involved in World War II. In the 1960s the Vietnam War sharply divided the country into pro- and antiwar camps that clashed violently on a number of occasions. It is possible that fake news has made societal splits worse, but that thesis is yet to be conclusively proven. It may be that fake news, along with other forms of digital information, has done nothing more than make it harder to ignore how divided people have almost always been."Harder to ignore" is not, of course the same thing as "caused."

Brief trade  reviews from the Amazon page for the book (longer versions of a couple here

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• [Barclay's] chapter on fake news provides a clear and succinct overview of the not-so-new phenomenon and the factors that have contributed to its recent proliferation (e.g., information overload, search engine optimization, and political bots). And his evaluation (and endorsement) of Wikipedia as a viable of information source is spot-on.(Publishers Weekly)
• The callout section on the Dunning-Kruger effect (inadvertently) explains much of what’s happening in America’s political climate; readers will find it chilling. Additionally helpful are chapters devoted to finding and evaluating scholarlyinformation and a list of helpful resources—turns out there are a lot more options than just Snopes.com.Librarians may find this a useful resource, but it should be read by anyone who wants to better understand fake news and to better discern its presence and defend oneself against it. Barclay addresses this timely topic in a readable manner, free from jargon. (Booklist)
• No serious collection should be without this specific approach to independent, critical thinking and fact-finding. (Donovan's Bookshelf)
• This book provides readable, practical guidance from a librarian and scholar of information literacy on understanding the trustworthiness of information in an era of fake facts. In Fake News, Propaganda, and Plain Old Lies, Donald Barclay provides useful information about the tricks such as logical and statistical fallacies used to create false facts. The book will provide value to high school teachers, undergraduate teachers and students, librarians, and parents who want to guide young people and the general public to being information-literate. (William Aspray, professor, Information Science, University of Colorado Boulder)

 

About the Author

Donald A. Barclay has been a professional academic librarian since 1990, having formerly held positions at New Mexico State University, the University of Houston, and the Houston Academy of Medicine—Texas Medical Center Library. He is currently the Deputy University Librarian at the University of California, Merced, where he has been employed since 2002. As a librarian, he has decades of experience in teaching students how to become more information literate. Besides working as a librarian, he was employed for four years as a special lecturer in composition and literature at Boise State University and also worked for ten years as a seasonal wildland fire fighter for the United States Forest Service.