False Porn-on-CNN Report Shows How Quickly Fake News Spreads (usatoday.com)

Slashdot reader xtsigs writes: "No, despite what you read, CNN did not run porn for 30 minutes Thursday, as was reported by Fox News, the New York Post, Variety and other news organizations, several of which later corrected their stories," reports USA Today. The story goes on to explain how the story started (a single tweet), how it was quickly picked up by media outlets (without verifying if CNN actually did, in truth, broadcast porn), how it was then retracted by some outlets (but not others).

Other outlets jumped on the story of the story while, as of early Saturday morning some sites are still running the original story claiming CNN did, in fact, broadcast 30 minutes of porn.

Comments

Re:Clicks are all that matter

[SeaFox]

Looks like the Journalists are cutting our throats.

Don't kid yourself, "journalists" disappeared a decade ago. What you have now are "personalities" on TV and glorified bloggers in print.

Yeeehaw! This race to the bottom brought to you by Brawndo! The Thirst Mutilator!

Re:Demonstrating something we already knew.

[PopeRatzo]

I was taught in elementary school to check sources and not rely on a single source. Even (especially) wikipedia was to be questioned.

If you learned not to question Wikipedia in elementary school, that means I have moles on my ass that are older than you.

That's exactly what I needed this holiday weekend. Thanks a lot.

Re:Clicks are all that matter

[Dutch Gun]

Don't forget the media themselves have their own controversies, such a rigging car crashes or using laughably fake memos created in MS Word as "proof" to impugn Bush's National Guard activities during the Vietnam War.

This "fake news" is a backlash from the mainstream media that realized that they don't actually *control* alternate media sources, and it terrifies them. Because, after all, those who haven't gone through journalism school and don't work for a real new organization can't possibly take their place in shaping the perceptions of the American public. This is about institutions collectively panicking over lost power and influence, and trying to find someone to blame. It's not that "fake news" doesn't exist, or that it's somehow new (hello National Enquirer), but given that the mainstream media outlets have been solidly pushing for Clinton for the last half year, it's not surprising they'd see this as some sort of watershed moment, and look for a reason that they couldn't convince the American people who they should obviously have been voting for.

In reality, the mainstream media has disenfranchised a large percentage of the population long ago. They're just now realizing that something is very wrong, but as is typical of human nature, it's much easier to find some external boogeyman than to look inward at what they could be doing to regaine people's trust.