
How I Became Fake News - pmcpinto
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/21/fake-news-charlottesville-215514
======
wyldfire
I hope this stays on HN despite the occasional moratorium on political
content.

I'm pretty careful not to share anything remotely political so as to avoid my
public profile taking on too much polarizing content.

But I'm astonished and disappointed by the capacity of some to forfeit
objectivity in the name of what seems to me like a cult of personality.

EDIT: I'm happy to burn my karma to speak my mind. Downvoters, please join the
debate.

~~~
zzleeper
I'm quite used to articles like this appearing as (flagged) by the time I
click the actual comments.

It would be interesting to know who is constantly flagging the articles,
either users hell-bent on hn being only about tech, or right-wing people that
don't want to be reminded about this.

~~~
vinhboy
> users hell-bent on hn being only about tech

I think communities, like ours, having this attitude is very self-destructive.
We can't keep trying to operate in a silo and exclude politics from our
discussions. Especially when a lot of us work on tools that exasperate these
political problems.

~~~
grzm
I understand where you're coming from. At the same time, not every forum is
the appropriate forum for every discussion. Some are better suited for
particular topics. The experience of discussing political issues on HN is
often very fraught and I think it's a very open question as to whether it ends
up being constructive or destructive to the HN community as a whole. I think
it's very important to be able to talk about political issues. I'm not sure HN
can consistently have constructive conversations on divisive topics and remain
the platform it is.

------
DigitalJack
I didn't see anything about "fake news?"

There are conspiracy theorists and assorted wackos in any sizable group of
people. I'm not surprised at the threats he has received. Amazed (in a bad
way) and disappointed that people like those making the threats exist. That
such warped brains exist. I'm not saying they should be wiped out, just sad to
realize that this state of mind is even possible.

But I'm not surprised or shocked.

Anyway, scanning through the article, where was the fake news commentary?

~~~
yorwba
The "fake news" part is the allegiation that everything was a ploy by the
leftist media to discredit the right.

~~~
DigitalJack
alleged by whom? some conspiracy theorists? who cares?

Fake news would be a mainstream media outlet declaring that George Soros paid
the driver to drive into the crowd.

Nothing like that was alleged in the story though (unless I missed it). He
just mentioned conspiracy nuts threatening him on twitter, email, etc.

~~~
tantalor
> On Thursday, Hannity broadcast claims on his radio show that the protesters
> in Charlottesville were paid.

I suppose that would include the author.

~~~
DigitalJack
Paid protesters are no secret. Doesn't mean they all are.

~~~
tantalor
What? Citation please.

[http://www.factcheck.org/2017/08/counterprotesters-paid-
char...](http://www.factcheck.org/2017/08/counterprotesters-paid-
charlottesville/)

~~~
DigitalJack
[http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/18/politics/project-veritas-
actio...](http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/18/politics/project-veritas-action-
robert-creamer-donald-trump-rallies/index.html)

------
glitcher
The image at the top of the article was extremely jarring. My immediate
thought was whether anyone in the image died, and then my stomach sank with
the sense that the use of this image for the topic of fake news is
exploitative and disrespectful.

If anyone who read the article disagrees I would like to hear your point of
view. I closed the page after only a few seconds.

~~~
wyldfire
I agree that the image is jarring.

I think that graphic images like this, or of terrorism, or of warfare are a
necessary check for those of us who are so disconnected from these events. It
does not strike me as exploitative.

Previously, I had seen video of the car driving away, reversing, and video of
the aftermath. I had not yet seen this still image, it's very striking. It is
clear to me that it is sheer luck that the devastation and loss of life wasn't
worse than it was.

> I closed the page after only a few seconds.

If you're disturbed by the image I really recommend that you consider reading
the article with your browser's auto-image-load feature disabled. I don't
think there's any downside to reading the article. After you've read it,
decide on the merits of what the author's written and any credentials they
have whether it should be credible.

~~~
glitcher
Thank you, that is a very thoughtful recommendation.

------
afarrell
A teacher of mine tied tourniquets on boylston street and was accused of being
a part of some Jewish conspiracy that used the Tsarnaevs as a fall guy.

------
baldfat
These things happen when people, with MH issues, thinks there are different
teams, like the Cowboys vs the Giants or Republicans vs Democrats. There is
only one team in America, Team USA.

Down Votes from people who didn't read the article? Author's life was
threatened for taking the video of the crash.

~~~
baldfat
Wait how are people taking what I am saying? They didn't read the article?

He posted the video of the crash on twitter and did interviews all Sunday. The
alt-right conspiracy was he was planted there to take the picture. His life
was threatened. Those are the people with MH.

~~~
grzm
I sympathize with the sentiment that we should be looking for ways to work
together. I suspect what people are responding to is your reference to "MH
issues", which I read as mental health issues. Unless you're speaking
clinically, which is difficult to see how in this case, it's name calling,
which is explicitly against the forum guidelines.

~~~
baldfat
Well when people threaten to kill the poster of the video of the incident
based on conspiracy theories I would think I am okay in saying MH?

~~~
grzm
When you say MH do you mean mental health? If not, please ignore the remainder
of my comment. If so, I don't think so. It's just name calling, unless you're
referring to specific clinical issues. I doubt you're attempting to attribute
particular diagnoses here. If you don't mean specific issues, then it's so
broad as to be meaningless, and that goes back to name calling.

------
udsfngicusgf
You know why this is fake news, because:

> I witnessed a terrorist attack in Charlottesville.

[http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/21/fake-
news-...](http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/21/fake-news-
charlottesville-215514)

> Fields has already been charged with second-degree murder, ...

[http://wtvr.com/2017/08/18/james-fields-jr-charged-
with-5-ad...](http://wtvr.com/2017/08/18/james-fields-jr-charged-
with-5-additional-felonies-in-charlottesville-car-attack/)

> Murder ... by any willful, deliberate, and premeditated killing ... is
> murder of the first degree... . All [other murder] is murder of the second
> degree... .

[https://vacode.org/2016/18.2/4/1/18.2-32/](https://vacode.org/2016/18.2/4/1/18.2-32/)

The 2nd degree murder charge means that the killing was NOT "willful,
deliberate, and premeditated."

Of course, the author is not actually saying that Fields is an accidental
terrorist. The author isn't saying Fields used violence to pursue a political
aim without any willful, deliberate, and premeditated intent to do so. The
author is lying. The author is trying to trick readers into assuming facts
which are not. That's why it's fake news.

~~~
wyldfire
> You know why this is fake news

You have distorted the meaning of this term. It was originally applied to fly-
by-night online "publications" who have no background or experience in
journalism making spurious claims later shown to have no backing evidence.

This is an eyewitness account of an attack (the authr does describe it as
terrorism, yes) and later the response to their account and video recording.
The video substantiates his account and the response is likely backed with
evidence (police report regarding white powder, etc).

You dispute the author's claim that it should be called terrorism. That's
pretty subtle overall IMO, and does not make the article or the publication
worthy of being described as "fake news." Please choose another term, like
"hyperbole" or "exaggeration".

