Zerohedge Included in What NY Magazine Calls ‘Extremely Helpful List of Fake and Misleading News Sites’

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Before I get into the meat of this article, I want to remind you of a few paragraphs I wrote back in the August post,  Questioning Hillary’s Health is Not Conspiracy Theory:

As I look at the landscape in 2016 to-date, I observe emergent signs that alternative media is finally beginning to take over from the legacy mainstream media when it comes to impact and influence. The mainstream media (unlike with John McCain in 2008), had decided that Hillary Clinton’s health was not an issue and chose not to pursue it. Many in the alternative media world took a different position, and due to mainstream media’s failure to inform the American public for decades, the alternative media drove that issue to the top of the news cycle. That’s power.

This is an incredibly big deal, and the mainstream media intuitively knows what it means. It means a total loss of legitimately, prestige and power. All of which is well deserved of course.

So here’s the bottom line. 2016 represents the true beginning of what I would call the Media Wars. Alternative media is now capable of driving the news cycle. Mainstream media now has no choice but to fight back, and fight back it will. It will fight back dirty. This is going to get very ugly, but by the time the dust has settled, I think much of the mainstream media will be left as a shell of its former self.

With Hillary’s loss, the mainstream media and its distressed and discredited allies are in a panic like we have never seen before. They understand that alternative voices now influence the public as much, if not more so, than the mainstream press, and they are now out to destroy those voices. The way they are going about this is by placing anti-establishment voices under the blanket umbrella of “fake news,” or in the case of Twitter, they just seem to purge people they don’t like from the platform altogether.

The gloves are now completely off following the publication, and wide distribution by legacy media, of a list compiled by Melissa Zimdars, an assistant professor of communication at Merrimack College in Massachusetts, of “False, misleading, clickbait-y and satirical ‘news’ sources.” What you’ll find, is that some of your favorite websites, including Zerohedge are represented in this ridiculous list.

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What do almost all of these sites have in common? They published a lot of anti-Hillary Clinton articles over the course of the election, which collectively helped to swing the contest for Trump. That’s the real transgression committed by these websites.

Interestingly, I didn’t see Slate on this list despite publishing one of the most blatant pieces of fake, pro-Hillary news propaganda of the year just a few days before the election with the following, quickly debunked, monstrosity:

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Even Snopes rapidly dismissed the claim, yet Slate is nowhere to be seen on the “fake news” list. If you are pro-Hillary, you apparently cannot be “fake, misleading, or clickbait-y.”

This whole story hits close to home for me. Zerohedge has been publishing my writing since 2010, years before I had my own website. It has been instrumental in providing an outlet for my own voice, as well as countless others, when legacy media never would. As such, I reached out to Zerohedge for a comment. Here is what they said:

It’s funny and sad at the same time – have they done any actual rigorous analysis on what they determine to be “fake” news, or perhaps the assumption is that the public should just take their word again… like when the NYT assured its readers that Hillary Clinton had a 90% chance of winning? When it comes to “fake vs fact” on Zero Hedge, we have a simple solution: we source everything, and all the data can be replicated by anyone. 

Ultimately this push will likely boost traffic to the “fake” websites – something the “credible” legacy media, which just had its worst year ever, desperately needs. 

But what is more troubling is that this sets the framework for “banned media”, especially  when one considers it was the outspoken “liberal” voices within the 4thestate who were in arms that Trump would unleash precisely this kind of media witch hunt. Apparently the objective media does not need a president to prompt it to start its own book burning project.

Moving along, who cares that some assistant professor made a list of sites she doesn’t like and warns people about them? Why should we pay attention?

We should care because it is being promoted heavily by the mainstream media. For example, look at how a writer at New York Magazine promoted the list (seems kinda “clickbait-y” doesn’t it):

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This is as close as you can get to a publication totally endorsing the list. Moreover, the story is currently the #1 most read article on New York Magazine’s website today.

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Naturally, New York Magazine would never resort to the sort of “clickbait-y” tactics perpetrated by these so-called fake news sites. Perhaps I was hallucinating when I saw its recent cover photo:

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Then when you actually click through to the cover story, the following image pops out at you:

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This, you see, is what real news looks like.

It’s not just New York Magazine either. The Los Angeles Times today published an article titled, Want to Keep Fake News Out of Your Newsfeed? College Professor Creates List of Sites to Avoid. Here’s how it begins:

During the election, many people fell prey to fake news stories on social media — even the president-elect ended up retweeting fake statistics. A professor of communication has created a list of unreliable news sites to help people do better.

Melissa Zimdars, an assistant professor of communication at Merrimack College in Massachusetts, put together a publicly available Google doc cataloging “False, misleading, clickbait-y and satirical ‘news’ sources.” It’s been making the rounds on social media as people seek to cleanse their newsfeeds of misinformation.

The article then ends with the following:

Both Facebook and Google have recently announced they will take steps to block fake news sites from accessing their advertising services.

One has to wonder what sort of criteria Facebook and Google will be using in its determination of “fake news.” If it ends up with anything resembling the above list, we should all be very concerned.

It’s not as if these mainstream media outlets are promoting this list to sow doubts in the sites’ already existing readers; rather, the intent is to keep their own readers away. It’s a nefarious attempt at preventing current readership from being open to alternative information, and we should all hope it backfires spectacularly.

Of course, this is just one battle in the status quo’s attempt to silence alternative voices. Twitter is on its own mission following Hillary Clinton’s election loss. As USA Today reported this morning in its post, Twitter Suspends Alt-Right Accounts:

SAN FRANCISCO — Twitter suspended a number of accounts associated with the alt-right movement, the same day the social media service said it would crack down on hate speech.

Among those suspended was Richard Spencer, who runs an alt-right think tank and had a verified account on Twitter.

The alt-right, a loosely organized group that espouses white nationalism, emerged as a counterpoint to mainstream conservatism and has flourished online. Spencer has said he wants blacks, Asians, Hispanics and Jews removed from the U.S.

Heidi Beirich, spokeswoman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, told USA TODAY that the center had asked Twitter to remove more than 100 accounts of white supremacists who violated Twitter’s terms of service. She also pointed to two alt-right accounts that had been verified by Twitter, including Spencer’s.

This Spencer character doesn’t appear to be a particularly nice guy, and Twitter can do whatever it wants, but what concerns me is the overall trend. Namely, how information gatekeepers are suddenly panicking to demonize or ban alternative voices following Trump’s election victory.

The message here is simple: It’s Game On. The legacy media has taken the gloves off entirely and we are now engaged in all out media war.

For prior articles on the topic, see:

Obama Enters the Media Wars – Why His Recent Attack on Free Speech is So Dangerous and Radical

Hillary Clinton Enters the Media Wars

The Death of Mainstream Media

In Liberty,
Michael Krieger

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24 thoughts on “Zerohedge Included in What NY Magazine Calls ‘Extremely Helpful List of Fake and Misleading News Sites’”

  1. This will be very helpful when all of the social media sites offer their users the option to “Filter Spam/Fake News”.

    As a courtesy, this will be the default setting on the next update.

    Of course, you’ll be able to opt out of all filtering by checking a tiny box buried under 5 drill-downs in the Preferences tab. Although, opting out will probably subject you to a deluge of actual, legitimate spam posts

    hmmm… legitimate spam… What is an oxymoron, Alex?

    Reply
  2. The MSM utterly devastated themselves by their blatant portrayal of Trump as being a thousand times worse than Hitler — not only did it not prevent The Don from being elected, its caused readership to plummet along with ad revenues, and the snowflakes are foaming at the mouths like hydrophobic curs at the thought they’re suddenly in Nazi Germany. And WHAT’s the reaction of these propandizing fiends? Do they learn a hard lesson from their bad decisions? No! They double-down on crazy pills and keep the war going! But its futile. Not only is there now no legal power that will follow through with their insane war on alt media, what few people that still read the NYT or tune into ABC will turn them off and follow their list of fake sites to Drudge and Zerohedge and here. The upshot will be that, since all MSM is now corporate-owned, it will cease to have any idea of being profitable, and instead plough forward as the main lobbyist tool for its owners. No longer will they have to pretend to be journalists: they will slide comfortably and naturally into their roles as Ministries of Information for their corporations and the sleazy politicians their super-PACs have purchased. Oh yes. Things in the media are going to get VERY ugly as the faces get ripped off and the evil glowering skulls finally see daylight.

    Reply
    • AWESOME!!! A friend actually posted the original
      on her FB page today with comments as to how relieved that some one had made this list!! Just shook my head in disbelief… The shit people will believe these days to reassure themselves that they’re “opinions” are indeed, justified! LMAO

    • The solution is so simple, already started.
      Stop expending your money on papers as a first step. The second involve to you to work a little bit.
      Make a document detailing that you and your family members are stoping buying the products that you “XXXXXX” manufacture or produce, because your support of a media that embark in lie and deceive the american people. your company, business,enterprise do not deserve our support and or advocacy .
      Something like this, is up to you.
      Then save it, and you can use with copy and paste commands.
      Then start to found out all this companies or business addresses on the web. Then, copy and paste and send… that is all.
      Believe me, works very well…

      Nobody like to have the wallet touched or the pocket being emptied

  3. First they came for the alt-right. I did not oppose because I was not alt-right.

    Then they came for the right. I did not oppose because I was not right.

    Then they came for me…

    Reply
  4. Don_in_Odessa’s fake news list:

    ABC News
    AlterNet*
    BBC
    BuzzFeed
    BuzzFlash
    CNN
    The Colbert Report
    Common Dreams*
    Congressional Quarterly
    Counterpunch*
    Daily Beast
    The Daily Show
    Digg Politics
    Ed Schultz Show
    First Read
    Grist Magazine*
    The Guardian (UK)
    Guerrilla News Network*
    The Hill
    The Huffington Post
    In These Times*
    Media Matters for America
    Meet the Press
    MSNBC
    Mother Jones*
    The Nation*
    National Journal
    The New Republic
    New Yorker
    New York Times
    NPR
    Pacifica Radio*
    PBS NewsHour
    Politico
    The Progressive*
    Rachel Maddow Show
    Radar Online
    Real Time With Bill Maher
    Reddit Politics
    Rolling Stone
    Salon
    SF Gate
    Slate
    Time
    TomPaine*
    TruthDig*
    Truthout*
    Utne Reader
    The Village Voice*
    The Washington Monthly
    Washington Post

    Reply
  5. This really irks me! What they think they are deciding flies in the face of reason. I can decide for myself after researches what is true and what is not! I don’t need anyone else deciding what I can and can’t read and think or not think. Bias news is on the left and the right. Stop this now!

    Reply
  6. Don’t worry, the real fake news outlets (ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, etc.) were not able to fool enough of the American voters this time.

    Reply
  7. If there is something that this American election has proven, is that a great proportion of the electorate is really gullible. I mean, think of all the people that voted for Trump and Clinton!

    In case this is any use to anyone, this is how you actually figure out the truth from the manipulation:
    1. Apply ABC: Assume nothing, Believe nobody, Check everything.
    2. Assume all news, from any source, whether mainstream or alternative, is meant to manipulate you. Either to get your allegiance to a party, to get you to buy something, to make some investment decision, or something else somebody is trying to get you to do. The news outlet or blog may be perfectly well-meaning and still try to manipulate you. They may be sincerely trying to enlighten you with the truth, and hope you buy their books.
    3. Once you figure out what they want you to do, you can pretty much guess what the bias will be, and compensate for it.
    4. Mainstream media usually try to get their facts right (forget about their interpretations of why things happened, they’ll be biased). Alternative media may or may not make an effort to get their facts right. Double-check until you find out if the blogger is careful with their sources.
    5. Check the date! Check the author! Sometimes old news is passed as something that happened yesterday. Sometimes when you check on the author, it becomes obvious it’s somebody that lies almost as often as they speak.

    Reply
    • “Mainstream media usually try to get their facts right”

      You may want to reevaluate your own personal definition of “usually”, Energywatcher.

  8. What? The racist, bigoted, mysogenic, homophobic, xenophobic, bible thumping, gun nut cretins have stopped believing the propaganda?/sarc. It’s about F’n time. Would be nice to see the sold out, irrationally biased dinosaurs finally go extinct.

    Reply
  9. Don_in_Odessa got it right. The REAL fake and misleading news is the MSM (Mainstream Media) in all the variations posted above by Don_in_Odessa.

    I don’t think people have really awakened to the fact, that this election wasn’t really about getting Trump into office, as much as it was about KEEPING SHILL-ary (or SHRILL-ary, if you prefer) AND THE “ELITES” BEHIND SHILL-ary ~ OUT OF OFFICE! I think the Western “elites” decided to go with Trump, because SHILL-ary is “damaged goods”. This election was also A GI-NORMOUSLY FAT MIDDLE FINGER BY AMERICANS TO THE SO-CALLED ESTABLISHMENT OR STATUS QUO for essentially raking America and Middle-Class Americans over the coals for the past 3 decades, at least. (And this is JUST THE BEGINNING.)

    Reply
  10. I think the word for Democrat intelligentsia actions is “flailing about.”
    Their first targets were expected: Russia, Putin, Comey, FBI.
    For 10 days, they ignored the Internet completely. Then, some prof gave them a wake-up call and like the fascists that they are, they decided to kill the Internet. Good luck with that.
    All they need is one egg-head to write a paper and then they all wag it around like it’s the ten commandments. Rogoff is one of those guys (wants to ban cash now- seems innocent).
    Gandhi- first they ignore you , then they attack you then you win.
    Zerohedge is one of my leading source. Nobody has all the answers, but ZH is a good discussion board and funny, because life, politics and macro-economy we’re forced to live under are tragic-comedy.

    Reply
  11. MSM: Journalism is too expensive. So, we’ve decided to increase the Narrative (h/t to the Wash Post) and the fascist propanda. It’s getting shilly in here.

    Reply
  12. It all started with 9/11.when they didnt even demand a real investigation, you knew that main stream media is nothing more than propaganda.

    Reply

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