Fake news

Donald Trump has always attacked the news media outlet ever since he became president, and this time, he is not just saying, but putting it into action after major news outlets such as CNN, Politico, BBC, Buzzfeed and the New York Times were blocked from an off Camera briefing on Friday.

Press Secretary Sean Spicer cancelled an on-camera briefing, and instead held a private briefing in his office, that was only opened to some selected media outlet.

                 

                        In Your face CNN and Buzzfeed

Some of the news outlet allowed to attend the briefing includes, Breitbart news, The Washington Examiner, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times.

The Associated Press and Time Magazine boycotted the closed briefing.

CNN has been one of Donald Trump target, as he attacks their reporters, and the television network. In a recent speech at The Conservative Political Action Conference, Donld Trump aside from calling CNN "The very fake news" went on to call them the "Clinton News Network"

CNN in a statement said;

This is an unacceptable development by the Trump White House. Apparently this is how they retaliate when you report facts they don't like. We'll keep reporting regardless.

AlsoBuzzFeed Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith, in a statement said;

While we strongly object to the White House’s apparent attempt to punish news outlets whose coverage it does not like, we won’t let these latest antics distract us from the work of continuing to cover this administration fairly and aggressively.

The White House Correspondents’ Association board also released a statement that reads;

The WHCA board is protesting strongly against how today’s gaggle is being handled by the White House. We encourage the organizations that were allowed in to share the material with others in the press corps who were not. The board will be discussing this further with White House staff.

 

Categories:

Online encyclopaedia  giant, Wikipedia, have labelled Daily Mail as an "Unreliable source" due to its "reputation for poor fact checking and sensationalism"

               

Wikepedia, which does not approve or disapprove news outlet before now had been investigating Daily mail since early 2015. The investigation is done by the volunteer editors in Wikipedia, and had released a statement to their findings, it reads;

Based on the requests for comments section [on the reliable sources noticeboard], volunteer editors on English Wikipedia have come to a consensus that the Daily Mail is ‘generally unreliable and its use as a reference is to be generally prohibited, especially when other more reliable sources exist’.

This means that the Daily Mail will generally not be referenced as a ‘reliable source’ on English Wikipedia, and volunteer editors are encouraged to change existing citations to the Daily Mail to another source deemed reliable by the community. This is consistent with how Wikipedia editors evaluate and use media outlets in general – with common sense and caution.

The proposal to label the news outlet was started by an editor known as Hillbillyholiday, and why different editors have supported the move, some of the editors have opposed the motion, and said why some news on Daily Mail might not be reliable, other publications make the gaffe,citing the news outlet and their blunders. 

The editors not supporting the move also believe it was done because of the dislike for the Daily Mail publication, and not what they do.

While summarising the discussion of the editors, Wikipedia editor wrote;

Consensus has determined that the Daily Mail (including its online version dailymail.co.uk) is generally unreliable, and its use as a reference is to be generally prohibited, especially when other more reliable sources exist. As a result, the Daily Mail should not be used for determining notability, nor should it be used as a source in articles. An edit filter should be put in place, going forward to warn editors attempting to use the Daily Mail as a reference.

Wikipedia has now asked for volunteers to remove and replace over 12,000 Daily Mail links, and replace them with a reliable source wherever  possible.

 

 

Categories:

Fake news has been one of the reasons for the twist of election in the U.S presidential election, with some believing that the fake news that was being posted about the candidates might have swayed electors about Hillary Clinton.

Tech companies are now fighting against fake news in their domains, with Google taking the first step by banning Adsense account of websites that publish fake news, and Facebook has said it will start allowing users to report any link of fake news on the platform.

                

To be able to help users understand how they could identify fake news, we have put together checklists of what you should look out for when you read news online that are completely false.

A News Without A Credible Source, Image Or Video: Most of the fake news that are written are most without a credible source to a known news source. The only source is their own quote, and most of the links they will share with you might be another link to another fake news website that is not credible, all written to hurt the subject.

The Headlines Are All In Caps: Fake news websites are in the good habit of making out their headline to be all caps. The headlines are done to get attention for clicks. Most of these websites on social media will then have a fake, edited images or image of an Old news as the article image.

They can write something like: "OBAMA WITHDRAWS SECURITY DETAIL FROM DONALD TRUMP TOWER BECAUSE" . A lot of social media users are likely to click on the news as the U.S election is still new, and Donald Trump is always in the middle of controversies, the word "BECAUSE" will make readers curious, and click.

This is not only a click bait, but such news is also likely not to have credible source, or any links with White-house correspondent, and might have the picture of President Obama speaking with some secret service details.

No Author Name Or Details: Most news outlet might not have names of the name of the authors of an article on their website, It is a great feature for a news website to have the thumbnail image and the name of the writer of a news article, as it will help give confidence to readers of the website.

PS: We don't have names of author on Doy News due to reasons best known to the board, but request on writers will be given if necessary to the appropriate individual.

Domain Name Stealer Or Imposters: A lot of fake news during the U.S election uses name known news website to share their news on social media. One of the news website is the abcnews.com.co, and imposter of abcnews.com.

              

The website uses a look-alike logo of the real ABC news,and design format, and uses a domain name that seems to go along with ABC news, but added  a .co. Unknown or inexperienced users of the internet will believe this site, but it is an example of a  fake news website

News Articles Are Listed On Snopes.com: Snopes.com is a website that fact checks all fake news online, though a lot of liars that just like to digest anything online won't like a site like Snopes, but if the news article is on Snopes, and it appears as false, then it is a fake news, as Snopes do thorough fact checking of fake news online and social media.

       

                       Sample of a snopes.com article.

About Us Page Disclaimer: More fake news have started to let readers know that their news is either fantasy or satire, though a lot of people don't see this, they just read and digest the news, and base their argument on it. This can be risky and wrong information or news spread real fast.

No Other Story Related To The Story: Online If a story sound so serious on a new news website, and no other news website are sharing the story, then it is probably fake news.Though a news website might get an exclusive, but it needs to show evidence of such incident to get great news following.

Some of sample of websites like this is infowars.com of Alex Jones. It is always a mixture of fake and some "Ok" news.

Be careful what you read, because you are what you read.

Categories: