I had already decided it was time to talk about “fake news”
when dictionary publishers Collins yesterday proclaimed the term as their word
of the year, just as Oxford Dictionaries had done with “post-truth” last year.
The use of “fake news” had, according to Collins, increased by 365 per cent in
comparison to last year, confirming not only an increased awareness among the
general public awareness of what it I, and how to identify it, but of an increasing
boldness in using the term – we all know who is responsible for that, but I
will return to that later.
I am pretty sure anyone encounters a website named “Leigh
Spence Is Dancing with the Gatekeepers” knows what they are to expect. Each
article be presented from the point of view of a particular person, i.e. me,
and that person may have a particular axe to grind. At the same time, I expect
that you know that without me telling you because, from Wikipedia to Facebook
to Twitter to Snapchat, anyone can say whatever they want online, and the more
respectable you appear, the more seriously you will be taken. Your CV may be
watertight, but the interview is what gets you the job – plus, using your own
.com address, and pink and white text on an International Klein Blue background
also helps. I know I am writing in a more anecdotal style than an academic one,
and sources are not listed like an essay, but if I know that someone wants to
look something up, either because they are interested, or want to check it is
correct, my work is done.
However, the Collins dictionary definition of the noun “fake
news” will be: “false, often sensational, information disseminated under the
guise of news reporting.” Interestingly, when you go to collinsdictionary.com,
and enter the word “false,” the first example of the adjective “false” is: “It
was quite clear the President was being given false information by those around
him.” Oh well – there is no mention about separate objective and subjective
uses of the word “false,” or of “fake news,” because to do so would be to fall
down the proverbial rabbit hole.
It is no surprise that Donald Trump could take credit for popularising
the term “fake news” – in an interview with Mike Huckabee, he said, “the media
is really, the word, one of the greatest of all [the] terms I’ve come up with,
is ‘fake’ … I guess other people have used it perhaps over the years, but I’ve
never noticed it.” For someone who is also quoted as saying, “I am more humble
than you could ever understand,” claiming to have invented words that have
existed for decades is about as hubristic as you can get.
The accumulated use of “fake news,” already used to describe
“The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and “The Onion,” has grown because of Trump,
but his use of it – “the Fake News is at it again” – is different from the
Collins definition, because it is the same as his abbreviation “MSM”
(mainstream media), in that it is anything he personally doesn’t like. Donald
Trump uses “fake news” like the main character of J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in
the Rye,” Holden Caulfield, calls everyone “goddam phoneys.” That we can now
argue the meanings of words is par for the course these days, and that we can
do it with “fake news” is even worse.
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