The Great Fake News Crisis: Infowars, Pravda, And Little Jim Acosta

Wes WalkerAugust 9, 2018

0 45 3 minutes read

If you think Infowars going dark is only the ‘tip of a bigger iceberg’ … you’re right. But are you sure you know what that ‘bigger iceberg’ REALLY is?

With most big issues, there’s a difference between ‘the story of the day’ and the bigger issue at hand. And not just the question of “who’s next”, either?

Even though that’s a question that SOMEBODY should be asking. That’s for another day.

I’m more interested in taking a step back and looking at the ‘wide angle’ view here.

For example, when the Parkland story first blew up, there were obviously imminent questions about what went wrong, and what should be done about it.

But those of us who took that ‘step back’ would also start asking the question ‘how did this crisis organize itself into a coordinated nation-wide movement even before they’d finished notifying all the next of kin?‘

It isn’t a question our ‘Free Press’ took any interest in asking. But some of us in the ‘new media’ found it newsworthy.

We’re seeing the same sort of thing with the Infowars story that’s tucked into that broader narrative of ‘fake news’ and ‘hate speech’.

With everyone so focused on the Micro issue of Private Company Rights vs Free Speech, is it possible we’re missing a Macro picture here, too?

Even that binary choice in the Micro — as Ted Cruz pointed out in his questions to Zuckerberg — misses the REAL point. The real question here should be “are you a platform or are you a publisher”? Because publishers and open platforms play by different legal rules, and so far, they’ve been having their cake, and eating it too.

So, if we’ve been largely missing THAT point, what ‘macro question’ are we missing while we all talk about Infowars, social media and fake news in this ‘Great Fake News Crisis’?

https://www.facebook.com/176750656223447/videos/296709377560907/

I would argue that we’re missing out on the moral lessons we should have learned from Soviet Russia’s experiment with Pravda.

And, I would add, how little Jim Acosta’s wounded bird act doesn’t hide his complicity in serving America’s version of Pravda.

It doesn’t hide just how many dangerous and SPECIFIC similarities exist — since CNN and their Media(D) friends LOVE talking about Russia — between Western Media’s own behavior and that of Soviet Russia’s infamous Propaganda machine.

The video covers all of that.

And if you’re wondering who the hell I’m talking about when I mention Sharyl Attkisson… we’ve covered her story here:

Dear CNN: Reporter Testifies Before Congress That Obama-Era Intel Agencies Spied On Her — Is That News?

For more detail, she’s written about it — and the unmasking probe — on ‘The Hill’.

If the gutless ‘news’ services aren’t willing to ask the real questions. Then it’s up to the rest of us, isn’t it?

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What Jim Acosta, Rachel Maddow and the Rest of The Media (D) STILL haven’t figured out yet is why we call them ‘Fake News’.

Let’s spell it out for them. In a shirt.

Because you know they won’t be able to figure it out on their own.

JOUR-NAL-IST: A Professional Liar For Liberal Causes

There’s a ladies’ version…