Category Archives: Fake News

Re: the Feb. 6 article "Trump's 2020 election claims."

In his letter the writer wrote, "Saying 'pigs fly' doesn't make it so."

To which I'd like to add, that it is similarly a lie to say that the January 6, 2020 violent insurrection and assault on the Capitol and on the US Constitution as incited by the ex-president, was "ORDINARY CITIZENS ENGAGED IN LEGITIMATE POLITICAL DISCOURSE," as the Republican National Committee tried to claim.

Furthermore, in the light of the widely-broadcast photographic documentation, this absurd claim is an insult to the intelligence of every seeing American voter. It was made by a weak-kneed political party, which lacks the guts to tell the truth, as they surely would if they cared at all about the future of democracy in our country.

Disclaimer: As submitted to the Arizona Daily Star.

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Letter: Fake News and Lies | Letters to the Editor - Arizona Daily Star

Some twenty French newspapers have joined forces with Agence France Presse and Google France to define what is true and what is false during elections. A new version of Pravda (Truth, in Russian) ?

On December 6, Agence France Presse (AFP) and Google France announced the creation of a program to fight against disinformation called Objectif Dsinfox. At the beginning of February 2022, about twenty major media* joined this project aiming at fighting against fake news during the election period.Thus, all the editorial offices involved will pool their fact-checks, in other words, their means of verifying the news. The media involved in this coalition will have at their disposal digital tools useful for cross-checking online information (Label Fact Check, Google Image Search, Trends, PinPoint, Invid-WeVerify, Politoscope developed by the CNRS, and the tweet counter and other ad-hoc tools proposed by Visibrain). In addition, AFP will deliver its #elections2022 fact-check feed to partner media free of charge.The intention is commendable.

Information has always been a formidable weapon, especially in critical times. Information is disinformation, manipulation, intoxication, propaganda, indoctrination In this respect, the role of the mass media is crucial. The media must say what is true and denounce false information aiming at destabilizing a man or a woman, a camp, a party, a country.Fake news, as we say today, has always existed, especially during wars. But they have taken a global dimension with the development of digital media and social networks.This was particularly evident during the U.S. elections, when both sides accused the other of using fake news. The outgoing president Donald Trump would have pronounced 30,573 lies according to the Washington Post. That is, on average, more than twenty per day! American intelligence services have also accused Moscow of hacking, intrusions and intoxication during the 2016 American elections.What happens in the United States, happens everywhere. Elections are a sensitive moment in a countrys democracy. Hence the interest in controlling journalistic information.

But how to distinguish the true from the false knowing that the world is neither all white nor all black and that the grey zone is largely in the majority? The naked truth does not exist, as we know. As for the lie, it often has the trappings of sincerity, even authenticity. Especially in politics, where what is true one day may not be true the next.Lets remember that both AFP and Google are already associated within the Trusted News Initiative (NTI) whose objective, with its partners, is to tackle dangerous misinformation on vaccines.Reuters is one of TNIs partners. Reuters has taken the lead in the crusade against anti-vaccine misinformation and to restore its truth about vaccines. NTI is responsible for censoring, on all platforms, all articles that would question this truth.However, the international news agency Reuters was chaired, from 2012 to 2020, by a certain James C. Smith who is also, since June 26, 2014 a member of the board of directors of Pfizer Inc. And one of the first investors. Note that Mr. Smith is also a member of the International Business Council of the World Economic Forum and many international advisory boards.Lets never forget that the biggest newspaper of the Soviet era was called Pravda, which means Truth.

*20 Minutes, AFP, Arte, BFMTV, Euronews, Fact & Furious, FactoScope, France24, Konbini, LCI, M6, Mediacits, Phosphore, Rue89 Bordeaux, Rue89 Strasbourg, RFI, Radio France Maghreb 2, RMC, RTL, TF1 and TV5 Monde.** TNIs partners? These are the major news agencies that supply all the worlds newsrooms: Agence France Presse (AFP), Associated Presser (AP), Reuters, but also the BBC, CBC/Radio-Canada, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), Facebook, Financial Times, First Draft, Google/YouTube, The Hindu, Microsoft, Reuters, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Twitter and The Washington Post

What media literacy and digital citizenship ?

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"Objectif Dsinfox" : the truth according to the media - Frenchdailynews.com

Omid Nouripour is one of the new co-leaders of the Greens. Photo: Future/Image

German Greens have been a regular target for online fake news, so the appointment of two new party leaders was bound to attract some attention from purveyors of online misinformation.

At the end of January, Ricarda Lang and Omid Nouripour succeeded Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck as party leaders, due to an internal Green party rule which means that holders of political office are not eligible for that position. However, on the same day the announcement was made, fake news began to spread on Twitter and YouTube about one of the co-leaders, Omid Nouripour.

The claim itself was grimly predictable, considering Nouripours ethnic background apparently the leader (who in fact belongs to the more moderate/conservative wing of the party) wants to introduce Sharia Law in Germany.

One Twitter user, Ali Utlu, wrote:

The new Green leader Nouripour would like to introduce parts of the Sharia that are compatible with the Basic Law.

The colour of this party is the same as that of Islam. Green.

Will this eventually mean killing homosexuals and cutting off limbs? Resist the beginnings!

As evidence for this claim, a video clip was disseminated in which Nouripour reacted to a speech made by a member of the AfD. He never makes the claim that Sharia Law should be introduced. Rather, in response to a fear-mongering claim about Sharia Law, Nouripour simply points out that Muslims should be able to practice their religion wherever it does not contradict German law.

As Correctiv have pointed out in a previous fact check, Sharia Law is not in fact a single unitary system, but an accumulated system of interpretation including different norms and practices, like when to pray and how often, how to fast during Ramadan, rules on alms tax, pilgrimage and differing ideas on how to dress such as whether to wear the headscarf.

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Fake news of the week: Do the Greens want Sharia law? - EXBERLINER.com

Whatever your opinion of Donald Trump, theres no arguing he was a slogan master.

He was lightning fast on the draw to deflect tough questions, instantly creating mantras to shift the focus.

There were many, but his fake news catchphrase was a favoured arrow in his armoury to glibly dismiss probing media exposs and create his own narrative.

It caught up with him eventually, though. You can deflect the truth for only so long.

Yet, the unintended consequence of The Trumpets chant is that it became an international two-word anthem for conspiracy theorists lurking on social media platforms.

Whenever people want to dismiss credible news bulletins because these contradict their own untested opinions, or might reflect poorly on their actions, they simply whip out their fake news cards without offering verifiable facts of their own or entering into intelligent discourse.

The Donalds jargon jive held consequences for the formal mainstream media, increasingly under attack by conspiracy theorists pushing their own agendas.

Unlike social media on which any blunt pencil can post defamatory insults, irrational diatribes and their own fake news without accountability, the Fourth Estate doesnt have that liberty

Registered newspapers, such as The North Coast Courier, radio and TV channels cannot afford to publish or broadcast deliberate fake news.

They ascribe to and are bound by a very strict code of conduct developed and monitored by the South African Press Council. It is elaborate and you can find it on the councils website.

In essence, it protects the public against unethical journalistic practices.

Aggrieved parties can haul any media transgressors to the Press Ombudsman ([emailprotected]) in double quick time and they are quick to investigate and rule on the outcome.

So no, ethical mainstream media will not deliberately publish or broadcast false information, the consequences are simply too embarrassing.

The facts of every sensitive or controversial story have to be thoroughly checked and verified before going to print or hitting the airwaves. Failure to do so has dire repercussions.

This is not the case with the open house nature of social media.

The public should learn to understand the difference before they lap up all the fake news nonsense.

Admittedly, despite all the best efforts for zero mistakes in the mainstream media, errors do on occasion fall through the cracks, but this must be seen in context.

Any news outlet is reliant on official sources for information, who often pass on wrong facts for dissemination.

The increasing unprofessionalism in the communications sector contributes significantly to this dilemma.

One of the key codes of ethics is that the media must unwaveringly remain neutral.

They are never out to get anyone or pick sides. Reporting must always be accurate and fair, reflecting both sides of a story.

Unfortunately many news articles will offend and upset some parties at the wrong end of the stick, but the people have the right to know what is happening in their world good or bad.

That is the nature of the media beast.

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#IssuesAtStake: Rise of the fake news jockeys - North Coast Courier

Its been a wild week for Joe Rogan. After a COVID-19 controversy, Rogan has been under fire for his rampant use of the n-word. In recent days, Rogan has apologized for freely dropping the word on his podcast, while also stating that he did not mean to offend anyone.

Hearing the news and the apologies, former President Donald Trump issued a statement calling for Rogan to end his round of apologies.

Joe Rogan is an interesting and popular guy, but hes got to stop apologizing to the Fake News and Radical Left maniacs and lunatics, Trump said in a statement to The Hill.

How many ways can you say youre sorry? Joe, just go about what you do so well and dont let them make you look weak and frightened, Trump added. Thats not you and it never will be!

Over 70 episodes of the podcast were removed from Spotify ahead of Rogans apology. Theres nothing I can do to take that back. I wish I could. Obviously, thats not possible, Rogan said. I certainly wasnt trying to be racist, and I certainly would never want to offend someone for entertainment with something as stupid as racism.

Trump joins a crew of Rogan supporters, which includes Hip-Hop figure J. Prince. J. Prince shared Rogans apology video on Instagram, and wrote under, Joe Rogan is not a racist. I know this brother. It takes a sincere individual to admit when they are wrong and have fucked up about a situation. As you can hear hes done that and I forgive him because I never want to become one of those people that are filled with un-forgiveness and hate, that we complain about all the time.

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Donald Trump to Joe Rogan: "Stop Apologizing to the Fake News" - The Source Magazine

Every year, Project Censored publishes State of the Free Press, an in-depth look at the years best independent journalism, centering voices and topics marginalized by the establishment press. Each volume features the projects list of the years most important but underreported news stories. In addition, the book provides critical analysis of the junk food news served by the establishment media and the prevalence of news abuse. It also revisits previous years top 25 stories and shares the inspiring examples of media democracy in action. The top 25 list for State of the Free Press 2022 includes topics such as how climate debtor nations have colonized the atmosphere, the way Pfizer bullies South American governments over the COVID-19 vaccine and the scant coverage of the historic wave of wildcat strikes for workers rights.

State of the Free Press is edited by Andy Lee Roth and Mickey Huff. Roth is the coordinator of Project Censoreds Campus Affiliates Program, which brings hundreds of professors and students at colleges and universities across the U.S. together in a collective effort to identify each years most underreported news stories. Huff is the projects director and president of the nonprofit Media Freedom Foundation. We asked Roth and Huff to share their thoughts on what important news goes unmentioned and why.

Peter Handel: How does Project Censored decide on its top 25 most censored stories each year?

Andy Lee Roth: The aim of the projects annual top 25 story list is to alert the public to extraordinarily important news stories that have been marginalized, distorted or ignored by the corporate news media, and to celebrate the good work of the independent journalists who have helped inform the public about those stories nonetheless.

The production of the projects annual top 25 story list is a year-long process that involves several hundred people and at least five distinct rounds of review and evaluation. Candidate stories are nominated by college students participating in the projects Campus Affiliates Program and interested community members. Once identified, stories are vetted by those students and their faculty mentors for newsworthiness, credibility, transparency of sourcing and corporate news coverage. If a story fails on any one of these criteria, it is deemed inappropriate and excluded from further consideration.

Once Project Censored receives the candidate story, we undertake a second round of evaluation, using the same criteria and updating the review to include any subsequent corporate news coverage. Stories that pass this stage of review are posted on the projects website as Validated Independent News stories (or VINs).

In spring, we present all eligible VINs in the current annual cycle to the faculty and students at our affiliate campuses and to our panel of expert judges, who vote to winnow the candidate stories down from several hundred to a short list.

The stories that make the short list are subject to another round of intensive review, and those that pass muster are sent to our panel of judges, who vote to rank them in numerical order. The resulting top 25 story list is featured in Project Censoreds annual book, on our website and by independent news weeklies across the country.

Give us a few examples of the independent news stories featured on the 2020-2021 story list.

Andy Lee Roth: One of this years top stories is the historic wave of wildcat strikes: Payday Report, an independent news outlet focused on labor issues, has documented more than 1,750 wildcat strikes since March 2020. Corporate media have by and large failed to connect the dots on the scope of these protests. In fact, until October 2021, when the corporate media began to cover Striketober, corporate news framed worker protests during the pandemic as sporadic, isolated events. Overall, corporate news media do a poor job of covering labor issues.

This years number two story, Journalists Investigating Financial Crimes Threatened by Global Elites, focused on a report by the U.K.-based Foreign Policy Centre about the threats faced by journalists investigating financial misconduct by wealthy individuals and international corporations. Journalists from 41 nations reported being subject to defamation lawsuits, social media smear campaigns, online trolling and even physical violence in the course of investigating stories on financial crimes. Although the Foreign Policy Centres report received some attention from corporate news media outside the United States, our research found that, as of July 2021, no major commercial newspaper or broadcast outlet in the United States had so much as mentioned the report. This is especially troubling because threats to journalists undermine freedom of the press and jeopardize the health of democratic societies.

Still other stories on the list have received limited corporate news coverage, but that coverage is not at all proportional to the significance of the topic. For example, story number 19, about Europes hunger for biomass fuel made from American forests, was the subject of one exemplary New York Times article, but no other corporate news outlet so much as ran an op-ed on the issue. The harvesting of timber for biomass fuels has led to toxic air pollution and catastrophic flooding along the southern coast of the United States, including North and South Carolina, southern Georgia, Alabama and northern Florida, but most Americans know nothing about this because the establishment press have failed to cover the issue.

In State of the Free Press 2022, you talk about disturbing attacks on the media at home and abroad. What were the major challenges to a free press in 2020-2021?

Mickey Huff: The COVID-19 pandemic is the most obvious threat to journalistic integrity, but not the only one. The pandemic has done severe damage to every sector of American society, and journalism has not been spared. In December 2021, the Poynter Institute reported that more than 100 local news outlets have closed since the beginning of the pandemic a terrible loss that accelerates the spread of news deserts, communities and regions where there is no local news coverage at all. Project Censored has documented how corporate outlets with conservative agendas swoop into these communities to exploit the need for local news.

But the threats to journalism arent limited to the pandemic. The United States is an increasingly dangerous place for journalists, who are subject to assaults, arrests and other threats. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker described 2021 as another record year for press freedom violations in the country, and documented 142 assaults on journalists, 59 arrests or detainments, 23 subpoenas of journalists or news organizations, and 36 instances of journalists having equipment damaged or destroyed. For these and related reasons, the United States ranked just 44th of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borderss 2021 World Press Freedom Index, which identified the disappearance of local news and ongoing and widespread distrust of mainstream media among the many chronic, underlying conditions impacting press freedoms in the United States.

A third threat to journalistic integrity comes from Big Tech. The impacts of the internet and the increasing influence of social media cannot be overstated. Google may not be a country, but it is a superpower, Timothy Garton Ash noted in his book, Free Speech: Ten Principles for a Connected World. The new media giants including Alphabet (which owns Google and YouTube), Meta (which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp), Twitter, Apple and Microsoft function as arbiters of public issues and legitimate discourse, despite their leaders assertions that they are tech platforms, not publishers or media companies.

As Andy Lee Roth has written, these tech giants are the new gatekeepers and their proprietary algorithms determine which news stories circulate widely, raising serious concerns about transparency and accountability in determinations of newsworthiness. Accountability and transparency are guiding principles for ethical journalism. But news gatekeeping conducted by proprietary algorithms crosses wires with these ethical guidelines, producing grave threats to the integrity of journalism not to mention the likelihood of a well-informed public.

Did threats to freedom of the press worsen during the Trump administration, or have they remained basically the same since 1976 when Project Censored began?

Andy Lee Roth: Trumps presidency exposed (and exploited) chronic malignancies in American society that predated his rise to power. Trump was extraordinary in his zeal to condemn the press as the enemy of the people whenever it reported news that failed to flatter him. He seemed opposed to any form of journalism that involved factual reality, with the exception, perhaps, of alternative facts, as endorsed by his counselor Kellyanne Conway. Its difficult to accept that there is no connection between Trumps provocative rhetoric and subsequent violence and threats directed at journalists, from Rep. Greg Gianfortes 2017 assault of a Guardian reporter, to the message Murder the Media scratched onto a door to the U.S. Capitol during the failed insurrection on January 6, 2021.

But it is misleading and dangerous to assume that U.S. journalism was free of faults until Donald Trump weaponized the term fake news to serve his own interests. That position cedes more influence to Trump than he deserves, while it ignores the importance of deep, structural flaws in corporate news media. As Project Censoreds Steve Macek and I argued in a November 2020 article for Truthout, explanations of news bias that trace it back to the self-interest and partisan bias of editors and journalists or even aggregates of those individual interests and biases fail to explain the political power of news or to identify the foundations on which far more fundamental forms of news slant are built. To understand the establishment medias deepest biases requires a structural analysis of journalism, including the economic imperatives, institutional constraints, professional values and social relationships that shape the production of every news story. These are the basic building blocks of the critical media literacy that Project Censored champions.

A clear-eyed analysis of threats to freedom of the press must look back before Trumps presidency not to mention beyond it. The Biden administration does not refer to the press as enemy of the people, but it continues in its efforts to extradite Julian Assange. And, although the First Amendment provides protection against prior restraint the effort to prevent publication or publicization of information or ideas by the government, in November 2021, a New York State court ordered The New York Times not to publish information about the group Project Veritas, a far right group notorious for its production of deceptively edited videos. As the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker noted, this was the first prior restraint for the Times since the Pentagon Papers case of 1971.

In your book you include a chapter on sensationalized and empty Junk Food News that discusses something you call humilitainment. What is Junk Food News, and how does it distract us from more substantive reporting?

Mickey Huff: Project Censored began to track Junk Food News after news editors contacted Carl Jensen, the projects founder, to counter the projects claim that certain news topics were censored. Citing a finite amount of time and space for news reporting, which prevented them from covering every important story, those editors got Jensen wondering: What do they report? The problem, Jensen found, was not necessarily a lack of time and space for substantive news, but the quality of the news selected to fill that limited time and space. Most of it was, in Jensens words, sensationalized, personalized, and homogenized inconsequential trivia, for which he coined the now-common term Junk Food News.

Today, faculty and students working with Project Censored continue to track Junk Food News. This years chapter investigates the social networking service TikTok as a popular purveyor of junk food news. In particular, the analysis focuses on humilitainment, a term developed in 2005 by media scholars Brad Waite and Sara Booker to describe entertainment that capitalizes on someone elses humiliation. TikTok trades in humilitainment, as exemplified by sensational news coverage of Gorilla Glue Girl. The chapters authors show how a fascination with humilitainment obscured more substantive reporting on topics including humanitarian crises in Yemen and Ethiopia, the wave of disproportionately female unemployment propelled by COVID-19, and legislation to restrict voting rights.

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Attacks on Journalists Are Just One Looming Threat to Press Freedom in the US - Truthout

Fake news is Donald Trumps favorite catchphrase. Since the election, it has appeared in some 180 tweets by the President, decrying everything from accusations of sexual assault against him to the Russian collusion investigation to reports that he watches up to eight hours of television a day. Trump may just use fake news as a rhetorical device to discredit stories he doesnt like, but there is evidence that real fake news is a serious problem. As one alarming example, an analysis by the internet media company Buzzfeed revealed that during the final three months of the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, the 20 most popular false election stories generated around 1.3 million more Facebook engagementsshares, reactions, and commentsthan did the 20 most popular legitimate stories. The most popular fake story was Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Donald Trump for President.

Fake news can distort peoples beliefs even after being debunked. For example, repeated over and over, a story such as the one about the Pope endorsing Trump can create a glow around a political candidate that persists long after the story is exposed as fake. A study recently published in the journal Intelligence suggests that some people may have an especially difficult time rejecting misinformation. Asked to rate a fictitious person on a range of character traits, people who scored low on a test of cognitive ability continued to be influenced by damaging information about the person even after they were explicitly told the information was false. The study is significant because it identifies what may be a major risk factor for vulnerability to fake news.

Ghent University researchers Jonas De keersmaecker and Arne Roets first had over 400 subjects take a personality test. They then randomly assigned each subject to one of two conditions. In the experimental condition, the subjects read a biographical description of a young woman named Nathalie. The bio explained that Nathalie, a nurse at a local hospital, was arrested for stealing drugs from the hospital; she has been stealing drugs for 2 years and selling them on the street in order to buy designer clothes. The subjects then rated Nathalie on traits such as trustworthiness and sincerity, after which they took a test of cognitive ability. Finally, the subjects saw a message on their computer screen explicitly stating that the information about Nathalie stealing drugs and getting arrested was not true, and then rated her again on the same traits. The control condition was identical, except that subjects were not given the paragraph with the false information and rated Nathalie only once.

The subjects in the experimental condition initially rated Nathalie much more negatively than did the subjects in the control condition. This was not surprising, considering that they had just learned she was a thief and a drug dealer. The interesting question was whether cognitive ability would predict attitude adjustmentthat is, the degree to which the subjects in the experimental condition would rate Nathalie more favorably after being told that this information was false. It did: subjects high in cognitive ability adjusted their ratings more than did those lower in cognitive ability. The subjects with lower cognitive ability had more trouble shaking their negative first impression of Nathalie. This was true even after the researchers statistically controlled for the subjects level of open-mindedness (their willingness to change their mind when wrong) and right-wing authoritarianism (their intolerance toward others), as assessed by the personality test. Thus, even if a person was open-minded and tolerant, a low level of cognitive ability put them at risk for being unjustifiably harsh in their second evaluation of Nathalie.

One possible explanation for this finding is based on the theory that a persons cognitive ability reflects how well they can regulate the contents of working memorytheir mental workspace for processing information. First proposed by the cognitive psychologists Lynn Hasher and Rose Zacks, this theory holds that some people are more prone to mental clutter than other people. In other words, some people are less able to discard (or inhibit) information from their working memory that is no longer relevant to the task at handor, as in the case of Nathalie, information that has been discredited. Research on cognitive aging indicates that, in adulthood, this ability declines considerably with advancing age, suggesting that older adults may also be especially vulnerable to fake news. Another reason why cognitive ability may predict vulnerability to fake news is that it correlates highly with education. Through education, people may develop meta-cognitive skillsstrategies for monitoring and regulating ones own thinkingthat can be used to combat the effects of misinformation.

Meanwhile, other research is shedding light on the mechanisms underlying the effects of misinformation. Repeating a false claim increases its believability, giving it an air of what Stephen Colbert famously called truthiness. Known as the illusion of truth effect, this phenomenon was first demonstrated in the laboratory by Hasher and her colleagues. On each of three days, subjects listened to plausible-sounding statements and rated each on whether they thought it was true. Half of the statements were in fact true, such as Australia is approximately equal in area to the continental United States, whereas the other half were false, such as Zachary Taylor was the first president to die in office (it was William Henry Harrison). Some of the statements were repeated across days, whereas others were presented only once. The results showed that the average truth rating increased from day to day for the repeated statements, but remained constant for the non-repeated statements, indicating that subjects mistook familiarity for verity.

More recent research reveals that even knowledge of the truth doesnt necessarily protect against the illusion of truth. In a 2015 study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Lisa Fazio and her colleagues asked subjects to rate a set of statements on how interesting they found them. Following Hasher and colleagues procedure, some of the statements were true, whereas others were false. The subjects then rated a second set of statements for truthfulness on a six-point scale, from definitely false to definitely true. Some of the statements were repeated from the first set, whereas others were new. Finally, the subjects took a knowledge test that included questions based on the statements. The results revealed that repetition increased the subjects perception of the truthfulness of false statements, even for statements they knew to be false. For example, even if a subject correctly answered Pacific Ocean to the question What is the largest ocean on Earth? on the knowledge test, they still tended to give the false statement The Atlantic Ocean is the largest ocean on Earth a higher truth rating if it was repeated. When a claim was made to feel familiar through repetition, subjects neglected to consult their own knowledge base in rating the claims truthfulness.

These studies add to scientific understanding of the fake news problem, which is providing a foundation for an evidenced-based approach to addressing the problem. A recommendation that follows from research on the illusion of truth effect is to serve as your own fact checker. If you are convinced that some claim is true, ask yourself why. Is it because you have credible evidence that the claim is true, or is it just because youve encountered the claim over and over? Also ask yourself if you know of any evidence that refutes the claim. (You just might be surprised to find that you do.) This type of recommendation could be promoted through public service announcements, which have been shown to be effective for things like getting people to litter less and recycle more. For its part, research on individual differences in susceptibility to fake news, such as the study by De keersmaecker and Roets, can help to identify people who are particularly important to reach through this type of informational campaign.

At a more general level, this research underscores the threat that fake news poses to democratic society. The aim of using fake news as propaganda is to make people think and behave in ways they wouldnt otherwisefor example, hold a view that is contradicted by overwhelming scientific consensus. When this nefarious aim is achieved, citizens no longer have the ability to act in their own self-interest. In the logic of democracy, this isnt just bad for that citizenits bad for society.

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Cognitive Ability and Vulnerability to Fake News ...

Published On 04 February,202201:36 pm

Fake news article says New Zealand planning to put COVID vaccines in the water supply

(Reuters) - Social media users have been sharing a fake article that wrongly says New Zealands government is planning to introduce COVID-19 vaccinations into the water supply.

The false text has been mocked up to look like it was published by the New Zealand Herald. No such article or social media post was published by the outlet.

The headline of the fake image reads: Leaked emails expose Governments [sic] underhanded vaccine plan.

The falsified screenshot shows the headline along with a caption that reads: The emails between Government officials and multiple local councils appear to discuss the possibility of introducing the covid vaccine into city water supplies in areas where the vaccination rates havent reached 90%. Prime minister Jac...

One user shared the screenshot on Twitter and said: Is this a joke? (here).

Another said: if people dont cut the head of the snake theyll be adding mRNA to the tap water... and then the food... (here).

One person who shared the screenshot on Instagram wrote: This is actually criminal!!!

The New Zealand Herald confirmed that it did not publish the report. No such post - or story - was ever produced by the NZ Herald, Shayne Currie, Managing Editor of the NZ Herald, told Reuters.

Reuters has not been able to find the story in any other outlets.

Reuters previously addressed digitally altered headlines shared online (here), (here), (here).

VERDICT

Altered. The NZ Herald did not publish an article reporting on a government plan to introduce the COVID-19 vaccine into water supplies. An image circulating on social media is false and digitally altered.

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Fake news article says New Zealand planning to put COVID vaccines in water supply - Dunya News

Jill Ryan/KJZZ

Lindsay Newhard, who plays Mayme Brown, rehearses the new musical Fair Game at the Holland Center on Jan. 29, 2022.

A new musical is appearing for the first time on a north Scottsdale stage Feb. 11-13, and its all about fake news and its consequences.

At the plays center are the rumors that have inflated the legend of Sarah Winchester and her mysterious mansion in San Jose, California.

Sarah Winchester is a name now synonymous with the horror genre. She was the widowed heiress to the Winchester rifle fortune born in the 19th century. She built a mansion in San Jose that is rumored to be supernaturally motivated. That mansion is currently a tourist attraction.

In 2015, Andrea Markowitz, the playwright, composer and lyricist behind Fair Game: Or the Importance of Being Honest, heard this story and was inspired.

I thought, wow, this woman whos filled with such grief that she has to express herself through building a home. I'd love to explore how she did that and why she did that, Markowitz said.

Jill Ryan/KJZZ

Bill Paynter plays Sigmund Freud in Fair Game.

But months into her research, as she kept finding increasingly more supernatural spins on the story, this Arizona resident ran into a problem after she found a biography by historian Mary Jo Ignoffo.

She pieced together the true story of Sarah Winchester, which has nothing to do with ghosts and being haunted and feeling guilty about the Winchester rifle murdering all of these people, Markowitz said. So my original idea for a play was completely gone because once I read this, I became so incensed. She turned out to be this wonderful, brilliant, good woman and how her name has been defiled for more than a century now.

So she refocused, interested in figuring out how Sarahs story could have gotten so sensationalized. She found five individuals who became characters in her musical, who either perpetuated the haunting of Sarah Winchester or sensationalized the rumors.

Referring to those five characters: All of the other characters are real life characters who had their own lives, that I researched very meticulously and [in] bringing them to life, I tried to portray them as honestly and empathetically as I could," Markowitz said.

Jumping off of that biography, Markowitz says her research included reading hundreds of newspaper articles and speaking with a great great niece of Sarah Winchester.

Jill Ryan/KJZZ

Cindy Campbell and Alex Martinez play journalists in Fair Game.

Fair Game is Markowitzs first musical, and she has only been a playwright since 2013, but she is award-winning.

Terry Temple is the managing director at Desert Foothills Theatre, where the musical is appearing at the Holland Center.

Its a funny, original, quirky little musical that she's put together, very clever, Temple said.

Temple compares it to a famous musical.

Its the other side of the coin. I've referred to it sometimes as what the musical Wicked is to The Wizard of Oz. Just telling that other side of the story, Temple said.

The show, Temple says, was actually scheduled to first appear in 2020.

And we all know what happened then: COVID hit and it blew up. So we rescheduled it for early in the Spring of 2021 and we had the surge, Temple said.

But now rehearsals are underway, and an audience at a January charity event got to preview a few songs.

Jill Ryan/KJZZ

(From left) Cindy Campbell, Oakley Rinehard and Alex Martinez, who play journalists, performing select songs for a charity event.

First time in costume, the cast performed on stage in steampunk attire. Sallyann A. Martinez, the director of the show, talks about her costume decision.

When I read the script, I could just see what was on stage. And to me, what was on stage was larger than life characters. And so those larger than life characters to me have big hats and coat and tails and you know, gears, Martinez said.

Also a choice: not a lot of choreography.

When some people think of musicals they imagine huge choreographed numbers, but Martinez wants to keep it more reserved.

I really want people to focus on the words of those songs because they have so much content in there, Martinez said.

And the songs are important. Music Director Kent Campbell says they move along the plot of the show.

Fair game will be talking about some of the news outlets at the time that were not very fairly reporting on Sarah Winchester, and you'll learn a lot about how that manifests itself, Campbell said.

San Jose Public Library

An article written by Ruth Amet, who according to historian Mary Jo Ignoffo, sparked local curiosity into a firestorm of visitors to the house. Amet is one of the characters in the musical based on a real person.

So what was the truth that Markowitz found about Sarah Winchesters mansion, which, according to the attractions website, currently has 160 rooms, 47 stairways and fireplaces and more? It was her hobby house.

She was just concerned with creating something different and new and seeing how it worked out. And sometimes she would rip out what she did if she didnt like the way it turned out. And sometimes she would just leave it and move on, Markowitz said.

Sarah Winchester, herself, actually never makes an appearance in the play.

Even though its her story, its not about her. I didnt want to exploit her anymore, Markowitz said.

She says the goal for this musical is to correct the perception of Sarah Winchester one audience at a time.

The following article originally appeared in the San Jose Mercury Herald on May 27, 1923.

by RUTH F. AMET

RECENTLY The Winchester Place has been leased by an amusement company. Invited to go through the Winchester house about which so much has been surmises and written I went. Theres nothing so very strange about the exterior even to the person who knows something about history. True, it resembles an Irishman with the slant eyes of an Oriental, a Roman nose and a firm Scotch chin, the whole topped off with an English monocle. That is to say, it is incongruous as to architectural features. Rose of New England shutters establish its only claim to symmetry. In fact it looks a good deal like a half size vendom hotel gone Cubist. From the outside it does not appear very large. But it is large, containing more than 100 rooms.

From the moment of the turning of the key in the lock expectancy mounted. The door, as Anna Catherine Green would say, swung slowly open. We entered a cement-floored apartment with similar apartments opening off it. What were they? Store-rooms, I suppose. Any number of them. One for jelly and one for Joann and one for Candice Sparagas, and still another for the Hound of the Baskervilles perhaps. I really didnt look to see. Thats the whole difficulty in writing the story. There were so many suppositions I neglected to verify, not knowing and the time that the tour would be ordered into newsprint. Otherwise I shouldve been most thorough, ascertaining, for example, whether Poes horrific Black Cat didnt lurk at the end of a certain shadow a little passage. One would need only penetrate to the point where coal-fire eyes gleam out of the darkness. Someone should have let me know. All I can say now is that I strongly suspect these things to be so.

Rooms, it must be said from the start, seem mostly to have been rather than to be. Unfurnished, and mainly undecorated, with even the wall surface stripped from them, they are nevertheless teeming with atmosphere for those who would a-ghosting go. In the short time the house has been closed it does not seem possible that so much should have deteriorated. As a matter of fact it probably hasnt. Entire suites of room they have been closed off for years and the best haunted castle fashion. A speaking tube that we touched fell off.Where does it go, I asked, my two partners in mystery laughing. Down, said they. True enough, the tubes certainly went down. Down where we couldnt discover. We were tempted to speak into the mouthpiece. But the thought of hearing Dr. Jekyll his back: Ill be with you in a minute decided us against it. When three are company why risk a crowd?

So unbelievable, so amazing in every respect did we find the Winchester house that we didnt follow any system of exploration. We raced upstairs and downstairs as the vista ahead held out the most lure. How could you count these rooms? asked the Partners in Mystery together. I dont know, I replied bewildered, unless you chalked A cross on the door of each room visited. For theres no apparent plan, no fixed arrangement of any sort in this house. We found a laundry equipped with some six or eight stationary tubs way up in the center of the second floor. We found kitchens and butlers pantries in the most surprising places. Faucets and fixtures were queer, old-fashioned perhaps, but strangely out of place in a home of wealth under constant process of alteration. Bathtubs were lined with tin. Not a single gold bathtub, like Desnoyers of Four Horsemen fame, anywhere. In fact rich effect is conspicuously lacking. There than whispers of a White Satin Room. I was high in hope of coming suddenly on just such another apartment as Dickens described in Great Expectations with the cobwebby wedding cake and all the other bridal furnishings. But of that later. Everything in this house is more like a book than anything else. It is another case of truth being stranger than fiction.

Take the laundry tubs. Laundry tubs are not strange in themselves. Yet laundry tubs in juxtaposition to a suite of drawing rooms or at least a little odd. Anything that is not quite natural makes one feel a little queer. The the laundry tubs started the queerness. It was something to go on and it went fast. Our progress was frequently blocked by a locked door. Sometimes we found the key in the lock and turned it. Often such a door will not open, being locked on the other side. A little queerness added here doors that would not open. Not so queer as it might be if not that we already stood in strange rooms. But first you must hear how we left the cement-floored entrance.

We chose a peculiar stairway. Steps were so shallow as to hardly necessitate lifting the foot. Get the width of the steps was too great to permit more than one being taken at a time. Inch by inch we went up. After toiling arduously we were apparently a little higher. We turned corners and kept going step, step, step. Still little altitude gained. After repeating this process many times we finally reached the second floor, a level not many feet higher than the point from which we started. Yet it seemed as if we traveled far enough to reach Tower of London heights. Quite a queer feeling. Yes, it was.

We were very much disappointed for the first few moments there after. Rooms were so bare. Without furnishings, without even wallpaper, they were just rooms. Soon they begin to take on personality. Indistinct, difficult to define, but personality nevertheless. Perhaps if I went through them again I could better account for this spectral quality. Perhaps Id be no better off than at present and could only repeat they make you feel queer. At any rate it is weird indeed to feel queer because of a house. It is the feeling that underlies the most successful mystery fiction. There is no mystery to equal the house that isnt quite right. Doesnt it make you prickle just think of it a house where there is something you cant understand, something that makes people uncomfortable, makes dogs uneasy, makes you shiver a little each time you recall it?

We passed from room to room. Once in a while we separated. But not for long. If, in eagerness to glimpse, I found myself alone, I didnt linger there. Id read too many mystery stories to be enthusiastic about being away from the others. I know too well the architectural haunts of certain celebrities of supernatural circles. From Mary Roberts Rinehardt, for one. I have learned what queer things happen on stairways circular stairways. Saying that I didnt mind the room I was in, nor any particular room that I was in any time, again someone explains this strange house. One doesnt mind them. Oh no not them. But the feeling is pretty close to the surface all the time that you might suddenly come upon a room that you would MIND. Not the third be anything in it at first class to horrify No-o-o-o-h. But just a room youd rather be out of. If you know what I mean.

Again and again we found ourselves in rooms where we could peer through windows into other rooms. Windows with glass in them and not only glass but screens. Fancy heavily screened windows between two rooms. Imagine being in one of those rooms and hearing a slight sound in the other. That would be the window. Youd simply have to look and see what it was made the sound. Better perhaps Im leaving it to the imagination. Sounds are so often a mouse. But where Ignorance is bliss certainly such a window would ruin everything. More certain still, no one raisin Sherlock Holmes could live in that house. Their imagination we get the best of them if nothing else did.

Almost stranger than anything else about this house is its faked air of a thousand and one conveniences. You sense it all at once. Here is a house where someone lived who believed in going way beyond modernitys latest device. And yet nothing could be more inconvenient than the same house. You feel that whoever put certain fixtures in did so only after trying others and finding that there was still some disconvenience to be gained by changing. The impossible closets for clothes! At least I suppose they were for clothes though many naturally suggested special nooks for those misty beings, who remain in concealment except for certain jolly little midnight escapades. One shallow affair, that particularly impressed, was built so it all but filled a narrow passage. The average sized person would have to squeeze with bated breath some three or four feet through this narrow space to reach the door opening into the closet. How youd get it open when you reached it I cant imagine, unless it opened in. I didnt try it at the time, it occurring to me about then that here was the individual wardrobe of De Maupassants phantom lady who might at any moment emerge combing her long, icy hair. Why precipitate matters by going in?

Perhaps none of these things sound so very strange. But coming again and again on these ear wreck syloble built in conveniences our feeling of queness defend. We often laughed, then quite as quickly ceased, caught by the unnaturalness of the place. The house is like a problem in mathematics with faulty figures cropping up again and again confusing you until you cant be sure whether to into are four or five. Inaccuracy a bounds in this house. As architecture, it is untrue, proper and a logical. As stands now str to ng, is be one to that as futurist affairs seven legged chairs and lightening jagged hangings and things like that there would be a little conspicuous or it not for doors where doors are not needed, windows where windows are simply incredible, and, yes trap doors. One room we went into seems to have a floor entirely made of trap doors. Trap-size squares were marketly divided and felt like thin ice under foot. One of our party of three stops to examine something on the wall.

Dont press anything, I warned him. Touch the right spring and well all shoot through to the seller. Mystery reading again! Thats what it does to you. But anytime I saw either of those two men fussing with speaker tubes or wall fixtures I had the same feeling of apprehension. Press the right thing in the trick would be turned. Either walls are closing in on us or the floor would go out from under us or SOMETHING. I was so insistent about this they became impressed. But you see they were already pretty well imbued with the queer feeling.

The Winchester house is after all mostly feeling. There is something of the awful house of Usher about it. Yes, really. Not outside. No fog or other atmospheric density envelops it. Rather I was flooded with California sunshine and the air was sweet with honeysuckle and roses. But inside well, inside it is an ideal place for Carolyn Wells to give a house party. Meredith Nicholsons House of 1000 Candles was never so strange as this house of 1000 windows and doors and airy stairways. Indeed, if there is one thing stranger than another, it is the stairways. They are everywhere. You go to the second floor. But you cant stay there and make connections. Very soon you apparently come to the end of the second floor. There are stairs leading down. Not the ones who came up. Oh, no. You never use the same stairs twice. You go down. Almost beside the descending stairway you find another leading up. If youre up. There you are again on the second floor. But not the same second floor. Its bewildering. How many times I went up I dont know. One has to hurry on the stairs because of what Mrs. Rinehart has said. Under the circumstances one forgets to count. Sometimes we took the stairs to the third-floor. In this way we often missed first and second floor sections.

One of our party had been in the house the day before. Before we started he told us of a Turkish bath he had found next to a kitchen and a servants sweet. Once the smoke curls evaporated from the soup, improvised he, the cook Would it make a flying leap for his Turkish steam room, in this way perpetually warding off pneumonia. We kept looking for that child room. We encountered similar service wings but none with a Turkish bath. Perhaps it isnt always there. This was in the height of fire to those unfamiliar with what happens in the Gray room, Red room, Missing Millionaire room tales. At any rate, the young man, who by the way I had never heard of Barries Mary Rose, believed we missed it.

One of the less inconvenient conveniences which we found a good many times was a type of built-in cabinet containing complete fire-fighting apparatus. On one of the upper floors we discovered ponderous chests with drawers that rolled in and out on some sort of ball bearing system. Our queer little nook over a glass skylight had shelves on opposite sides. There were little upper doors that open and shut, heavily screened of course. We opened them and experimented. How to reach into the linen closet, as we called it, and stack or unstack the shelves, without putting one or two feet through the skylight was a nice little problem in relativity.

And speaking of skylights, There are many of them. One that greatly amused us was a large affair built up in dome shape. It occupied a court some feet in width. Opening on the skylight from every direction was a door. Between doors were diamond shaped apertures which one can look through. You come up on the first door, unlock and open it. There is a heavy screen door in addition. You unlock and open that. There in front of you is a Glassfield area. Across, you see another door, also carefully screened. Opposite sides, more doors, more screens. This is one of the things that make you laugh. All these care devoted to instant egress and nowhere to go. All these little window-places to look through, providing one isnt rash and plunge is there a door, and nothing to say except that it will be well to look before you leap. Yes, one laughs and then that queer feeling.

There are other second and third floor doors that open on to nothing. They remind of a certain Buster Keaton comedy in which unwelcome guests were invariably taken to the upper floors to see the sunset. A door was opened, the guest gazing raptly skywards stepped out, or rather off. And that was that. It is little things like this that teach one to step softly in the Winchester house and above all things not to put the right foot forward until the left foot and a couple of hands have firm hold on something substantial.

Besides all the stairways, including the very wide, shallow staircase, first described, and a very narrow, steep flight of steps, there are four or five elevators in the house. At least I think that is all, but we may have missed some. Then, there are fireplaces galore. One particular sequence of rooms nearly convulsed us at first. Each of these rooms were small. Each had a fireplace. All were en suite. Another place for the cook to toast himself when the soup is cold and Turkish steam is off, we decided. But here, as everywhere, we stopped laughing abruptly and hurried on. Mystery story stuff! All right. The impassive and unimpressionable might indeed find these things merely freakish. But to the imaginative this old house is brimful of drama.

In some of the rooms it seem to me there was a mimicry and mock. It was deliberately intended to build a mystery house, I assured myself. But afterwords I was not so sure when we commenced in earnest to search for the White Satin Room. Once I went up to the fourth floor to find the top of the stairs sealed. Did the stairs lead to the White Satin Room? Those with me thought perhaps an entire section has been boarded up because of unsafe flooring. Well, perhaps. But how can we be sure? It is more interesting, at least, to believe that the white satin room, its brocaded walls intact, lines behind that sealed door, that it too has been dismantled and is no longer to be identified.

In this old house every sort of heating system is represented in a widely scattered way. We saw isolated steam radiators, occasional furnace registers in the floor, and ennumable fireplaces, while tile platforms and chimney apertures showed where stoves had been used. In one of the kitchens we found a charcoal broiler. In another, which we decided was the last one used, stood a gas range.

Later we even went into the cellar. We went, but I didnt stay. It was pitch black, and wed nothing but matches. Passages were long and twisting and a box of matches wont last forever. Besides, the cellar door was the flop down kind. A famous place to be shot in! I ceased a broccoli to follow the flickering match on this happy thoughts and shot back to the door to find it still holding open and escape possible. Escape, you might ask, from what? It is not for me to say, except that it was something particularly scarifying. As a matter of fact, we all escaped, even the daring torchbearer.

Perhaps in this penny-dreadful description I have not pictured the house after all. It is a perhaps house. Theres very little to go on. The late owner, Mrs. Sara P. Winchester, wife of William Wirt Winchester, and daughter-in-law of a manufacturer of the Winchester rifle, built it and continually tore down and built up additional rooms through a long period of years. She was an extremely wealthy woman and gratify her architectural winds. This fact again baffles. For outside of some exceedingly beautiful windows and the inlet floors and heavy chandeliers of a few rooms there is a little material of expensiveness to be found. window-shutters amusingly opening shot from within by a patent device. Perhaps there was a shutter servant who divided his attention between these and a ouija board.

Because there is a profound charm in mystery, I, for one, would tremendously like to give a Halloween party in this old home. First, each guess would be given a lighted candle. Then they would be started off in foursomes given intervals Allah golf tournaments. And would their hostess play Alice Through the Looking Glass again?

No, Not again. She would be, I should say, outside with the night watchman and possibly a police dog or two.

The rest is here:

A new local musical shows the only thing haunting Sarah Winchester was fake news - KJZZ

Stocks were down this morning amid a big January jobs report beat. Yields jumped, too, in response to last months far better than expected payrolls data. 467,000 jobs were added in January according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), surpassing the 150,000 payroll estimate with ease as unemployment climbed to 4% from 3.9%. The BLS also adjusted Decembers payroll gain from 199,000 to 510,000 and Novembers total jobs added from 249,000 to 647,000.

It was a huge shock to Wall Street analysts, many of whom were predicting a major jobs contraction. Even the White House warned last week that the numbers would come in low due to the Omicron variant.

Instead, US labor roared.

Or did it?

While the headline print was impressive, a deeper dive into the January jobs report showed what truly drove the 465,000 payroll gain:

A massive, unprecedented seasonal adjustment by the BLS.

Unadjusted, payrolls actually fell in January (as they often do). Historically speaking, many holiday-related jobs are no longer needed as the economy transitions from December to January. The BLS uses seasonal adjustments to account for the resulting reduction in employment.

And while theres usually a significant tick lower that needs to be adjusted for in January, last months post-Christmas drop was a doozy. 2.8 million jobs were lost in January (unadjusted), meaning that the BLS adjusted last months jobs number higher by over 3.2 million payrolls (to reflect a 467,000 payroll gain), which included adjustments for seasonality, Covid, and population the last of which is done every January each year. The seasonal adjustment alone totaled 309,000 jobs, the most ever for the month of January.

But they didnt stop there. The BLS also revised lower the jobs data from March-July by removing 1.061 million payrolls. August-December saw an upward revision of 817,000 jobs.

This calls into question virtually every jobs report released in 2021. Januarys report, however, was truly special. As we just mentioned, there had never been a January seasonal adjustment of this magnitude. The population adjustment was huge, too.

Last month, the BLS issued a +1.471 million payroll adjustment (blue oval) due to population control alone. Januarys Household Survey, from which the national unemployment rate is derived, showed a real 272,000 monthly payroll reduction (red circle). The BLS adjusted that number higher by 1.471 million (again, due to population control), leading to a net gain of 1.199 million payrolls (orange oval).

This is all data included in the January jobs report. Its not compiled by outside analysts or Wall Street banks. Its the governments official tally.

What this means is that, as we had suggested several times last year, the market was trading on misleading jobs data for months. The BLSs seasonal adjustments of 2021 were way behind what they actually should have been, and now, theyre playing catchup by over-adjusting in the opposite direction.

This also suggests that Januarys jobs data is as good as it will get in 2022. Everything from here will see adjustments to the downside. Februarys jobs report is likely to include a significant downward revision to Januarys tally.

Investors took this mornings report as a sign that the Fed would stay on course with its plan to hike rates in March. And theyre right; todays data did little to dislodge the Feds current position. But not because of the massive payrolls beat, which was really the result of some truly staggering adjustments.

What should really incentivize the Fed to keep the pedal to the metal were Januarys hourly earnings, which rose 0.7% month-over-month (vs. 0.5% expected) and 5.7% year-over-year, crushing the +5.2% consensus estimate. Thats the fastest annual increase in hourly wages since May 2020 when the US was beginning to reopen after months of economy-strangling lockdowns.

This surge in wages will only add to inflation moving forward, which the Fed fears far more than any additional labor gains for the US economy. After all, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said that the US already reached full employment several months ago. Jobs have little bearing on monetary policy now as a result.

So, the market got it right this morning in thinking that the Fed is still on track to hike rates in March. They were accidentally right, of course, in that they probably used the wrong data payrolls instead of hourly wages to justify their reaction. But their conclusion was correct all the same.

That could threaten the markets ongoing bullish bounce, which now dangles within range of a retracement to the recent lows. That hasnt happened yet, but it certainly could as March draws closer with each passing day and rate hike-driven fears continue to mount, encouraged further by juiced-up BLS reports.

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The January Jobs Report Is "Fake News," Here's Why - Unseen Opportunity