245
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Why is President Trump making such a big deal about fake news, and specifically targeting reputable organizations like The New York Times and CNN?
TL;DR I have been as bi-partisan as possible.
President Trump is attempting to discredit the media as they attempt to expose aspects of his administration they find worthy of journalism. Some may be ...
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187
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Why won't Donald Trump do something about "fake news"?
Because of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the ...
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88
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Why is Reuters considered as an independent and unbiased political news source?
The Reuters organization a news agency, not a news media organization. That means their primary function is to collect news from across the globe and deliver it to newspapers, magazines, news shows, ...
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80
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Why is President Trump making such a big deal about fake news, and specifically targeting reputable organizations like The New York Times and CNN?
While the presumption is that most of the stories are disliked rather than false, note that some of the stories have been false.
The New York Times reported that there was a pattern of ...
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75
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How does Russia’s fake news benefit them?
The fact that an entity is not directly running in an election does not mean in any way that it might not see as favourable, and thus prefer, an outcome over the other.
Particularly it is mostly ...
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67
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Why won't Donald Trump do something about "fake news"?
Apart from the legality, your assumptions are wrong.
You assume that there is a thing that can objectively be called "fake news", and that it comprises of stories containing false facts which can be ...
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40
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Why is President Trump making such a big deal about fake news, and specifically targeting reputable organizations like The New York Times and CNN?
Because, contrary to popular but wholly opinionated answer that was already posted:
Americans don't necessarily consider CNN and especially NYT as universally "credible".
A majority of ...
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35
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Is there a standardised way to check fake news?
There's no standardized way but there are a few well established ones.
And note that there are two hidden questions in your question. The first is: whether a piece of news is factual? The other one ...
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35
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How can a non-US resident best follow US politics in a balanced well reported manner?
It is impossible to be entirely objective in this. However some general themes are reasonable:
A mix of sources is likely to be more balance than a single source.
You should mix both Left and Right ...
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31
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Why won't Donald Trump do something about "fake news"?
The underlying political theory behind the First Amendment protection of the media mentioned in the other answer is that the governments and courts cannot be trusted to determine what is and is not ...
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21
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Is it illegal for candidates to pay a journalist to publish fake news?
Since you ask about the situation around the world, as an example of such a law (kind of) the UK has the Representation of the People Act 1983 which among other clauses has:
106 (1) A person who, or ...
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19
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How can a non-US resident best follow US politics in a balanced well reported manner?
The problem of left/right ratings given by various sources is threefold:
They refer to the US definition of left right, which differs significantly from the definition in whichever country you're ...
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19
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Is there a distinction between fake news and dissent?
Let's look at the Wikipedia definitions first.
Fake news is false or misleading information presented as news. It often has the aim of damaging the reputation of a person or entity, or making money ...
JJJ♦
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17
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Has any recent boycott against a media due to fake news channel succeeded?
The campaign against Breitbart organised by among others the Twitter account Sleeping Giants may qualify. Breitbart lost approximately 90% of their advertisers over a three month period in 2017 and ...
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17
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How can a non-US resident best follow US politics in a balanced well reported manner?
To add to the other answers, here's a media bias chart created by AllSides:
They run comparisons of current news from multiple perspectives on their tri-column news feed and Perspectives Blog. You ...
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16
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Why is Reuters considered as an independent and unbiased political news source?
Reuters is one of the eminent sources for news in the Western world. It is not surprising that it is considered unbiased by many in the West. After all, it squarely reflects and reports from the ...
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15
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Why won't Donald Trump do something about "fake news"?
EDIT: disclaimer in response to comments below questioning my motivation or ascribing partisanship to the way I have approached this question: My answer is not intended as an apologia for Trump; in ...
14
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Why won't Donald Trump do something about "fake news"?
I think it's important to understand the origin of "fake news" first, and Trump's use of "deflection" second. First, fake news was originally almost a wholly right wing concoction. Take for example ...
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14
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Who was the reporter to whom Donald Trump said "You're fake news"?
The reporter was Jim Acosta
A CNN reporter in the audience attempted to ask a follow-up question, but Mr. Trump repeatedly shut him down.
“No, not you, your organization is terrible. Quiet. Quiet,” ...
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12
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Why is President Trump making such a big deal about fake news, and specifically targeting reputable organizations like The New York Times and CNN?
The question title says the NYT is "reputable." That's debatable. There is a long laundry list of reasons to disagree. I'll look in depth at one -- their coverage of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Hoax.
...
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12
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Why is Reuters considered as an independent and unbiased political news source?
Reuters is considered unbiased because the evidence bears out that position. See this answer. They are firmly in the center.
Edit: see also this source. Reuters is in the category that uses the least ...
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11
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Can the POTUS take away licenses from news networks?
The traditional networks were (and still are, I presume) broadcast as radio transmissions from stations either owned by the network or affiliated with them. The FCC issues licenses for that.
However,...
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11
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Is it illegal for candidates to pay a journalist to publish fake news?
The journalist has (probably) committed libel, which is (mostly) not a crime in the US but can result in civil liability (i.e. B could sue the journalist). Since A and the journalist conspired to ...
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11
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How can a non-US resident best follow US politics in a balanced well reported manner?
This is genuinely hard to do. The Trump presidency has certainly polarized news reporting to the point where few US news outlets have any semblance of neutrality.
This is certainly true on the right ...
11
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Is there a distinction between fake news and dissent?
Journalism done well falls into three basic categories (setting aside arts and interest pieces for the purposes of this discussion):
News proper: This reports factual events without much ...
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10
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Is there a standardised way to check fake news?
I think there are different ways: based on disproving content, based on analysing content of loads of messages, and based on how they are spread.
Fake news
As the name says, it's fake, so proving it's ...
JJJ♦
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9
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Did the Obama Administration have an official National Security Strategy?
Yes, it seems that the author of the article is just completely incorrect, as the Obama administration produced a national security strategy in 2010 and 2015.
However, we can't say whether or not ...
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9
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Is there a standardised way to check fake news?
Is the website it is on trustworthy?
If someone shares an article on a news outlet you haven't heard of yet, it might be useful to take a look at the frontpage. If all the articles appear to have a ...
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Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible