A lot has been written about Fake News, but honestly, what I mostly see is Twisted News. It’s not that the facts are wrong, just distorted. Here’s a real life example that just came in to my Inbox (click on it to make it bigger):
Here we have news alert emails, one from “People’s Action” (ourfuture.org) and the other from Seattle Times. Seattle Times says, “Fourteen million Americans would lose coverage next year under House Republican legislation remaking the nation’s health care system, and that figure would grow to 24 million by 2026, Congress’ nonpartisan budget analysts projected Monday.”
So even though they contradict each other, neither email subject is actually outright lying, but these two different sources have chosen to put the spotlight on a different number. These sorts of differences say a lot about the outlook of the news source, and who they are trying to reach and influence.
What do you think?