HOW TO DETECT FAKE NEWS

Regarding fake news—it has been around since the beginning of time. Creating dis-information and distorting information is as old as the human race. But more recently, especially since Donald Trump enter into the political arena, it has become part of the everyday conversations. This is especially true since Trump regularly calls CNN and MSNBC and other new sources “fake news.” Now each time he does whether in rallies or in press conferences, it stirs up the crowds as he pokes fun at them for delivering fake news. But what is fake news and how can we accurately detect news that is truly fake? That is the question.

Fake news is news or information that is inadequately presented so that it leaves an impression that you would not get if you got the full story. Sometimes fake news is fake because the information is exaggerated so what is unreal is the over-statements. Sometimes it comes from untrustworthy sources which is repeated over and over by others, some who are trustworthy.

1) Fake News confuses descriptive from evaluative language. Journalism schools used to teach the difference between language that is descriptive and that which is evaluative. In older books on journalism this was a fundamental distinction. But apparently no longer. Whether in print in the New York Times or on air, journalists often confuse the two and, of course, when they do (intentionally or unintentionally) they create fake news. Now what they seek to describe empirically in see-hear-feel terms (sensory-based) are described in language that requires evaluation. In this way they impose their opinions and judgments into what should be “the news.”

This often occurs when a reporter adds a few words to help “explain” something. “Mr. X , trying to recover from what he said yesterday, today said...” But that explanation is mind-reading. The best cure for this is the Meta-Model of Language that NLP introduced in 1975. You can find this in The Structure of Magic, Volumes I and II, Magic DeMystified, and Communication Magic.

2) Fake News imposes the speaker’s perspective in its reporting. While descriptive language enables us to get to “the facts, and just the facts” of the case, even that is not perfect. There is always the problem of perspective. “From who’s point of view?” “From who’s perspective are the facts being reported?” It is in this way that all news involves spin. Technically there is no such thing as “a no spin zone” (with apologies to Bill O’Reilly).

Now true enough, there are Spin Doctors— people who intentionally and purposefully spin the reporting of events and comments so that it serves someone’s particular agenda. That’s what those who are “commentators” on the news do. If they acknowledge that they are commentators

and that their comments are their perspective and opinion, all is fine. But they often do not. In fact, they often present their comments as if they were the facts and that they are reporting the news. It is at that point that their words become fake news because it is not news that they are reporting, but their opinion and agenda of the news.

3) Fake News edits the news to fit an agenda. The way I often detect and catch fake news is watching an actual speech or report and then listen to a summary of it in “the news” on some station. What I saw and heard in the actual press conference and what is later “reported” may not be “spin” proper, or even the confusion of descriptive facts with evaluative views, but an editing of the comments and/or pictures so that the edited version leaves an impression that one would not have gotten from watching the whole thing. Whoever edited the piece, and whoever asked for the editing in a cut-and-paste manner, did so to slant the news so that it conformed with their agenda and opinion. Recently I have seen that often with the way President Trump’s comments are edited. When I am out of the country and see the news and then go home and see the recorded presentation, it is like looking at two completely different news reports.

4. Fake News uses assumptive questions to direct perspective. An even trickier and more subtle way to create fake news is to ask a question about an event or speech (the actual news), a question that presupposes a particular perspective and then use the event to answer that question. This happened most recently with the separation of families coming across the southern border. By inventing questions, and especially using rhetorical questions, then the so-called reporters can show pictures of the event and prejudice public opinion so that it is spined in their direction. One reporter asked, “Is it moral to separate mothers from small children and infants?” then showed pictures of the event. The answer to that particular question is obvious, its relationship to the legal question about the border, however, is never posed. The end result, a false impression.

5. Fake News tends to sensationalize and over-dramatize an event. As we all already know, the “news” on radio and television tends to focus on the negative because “negative news sells papers.” Negative news gets our attention in a way that positive news can almost never get attention. So it is really no surprise that news becomes fake (unreal) due to this very factor as it is given far too much emphasis. Then, given how that news stories and images on television can be dramatized and supplemented by other pictures, the bad news is distorted so it seems as the norm.

All that is called news is not news. Some of it is propaganda, some is commentary, some mind- reading, and some personal judgments. Today it requires a discerning reader/listener to think critically and effectively about the news.