Ten basic forms of fake news used by major media
by Jon Rappoport
January 5, 2017
The basic purpose of these ten forms is the presentation of a false picture of reality.
You could find more forms, or divide these ten into sub-categories.
The ten basic forms are:
* Direct lying about matters of fact.
* Leaving out vital information.
* Limited hangout. (This is an admission of a crime or a mistake, which only partially reveals the whole truth. The idea is that by admitting a fraction of what really happened and burying the biggest revelations, people will be satisfied and go away, and the story will never be covered again.)
* Shutting down the truth after publishing it—includes failing to follow up and investigate a story more deeply.
* Not connecting dots between important pieces of data.
* Censoring the truth, wherever it is found (or calling it “fake news”).
* Using biased “experts” to present slanted or false “facts.”
* Repeating a false story many times—this includes the echo-chamber effect, in which a number of outlets “bounce” the false story among themselves.
* Claiming a reasonable and true consensus exists, when it doesn’t, when there are many important dissenters, who are shut out from offering their analysis.
* Employing a panoply of effects (reputation of the media outlet, voice quality of the anchor, acting skills, dry mechanical language, studio lighting, overlay of electronic transmissions, etc.) to create an impression of elevated authority which is beyond challenge.
These are all traditional forms and methods.
(Jon’s mega-collection, Power Outside The Matrix, features a long section called:
Analyzing Information in the Age of Disinformation, click here.)
Here’s an example of a big story that deployed all ten forms of fake news: the Swine Flu pandemic of 2009.
In the spring of 2009, the World Health Organization (elevated authority beyond challenge) announced that Swine Flu was a level-6 pandemic—its highest category of “danger.” In fact, there were only 20 confirmed cases at the time (direct lying about “danger”). And W.H.O. quietly changed the definition of “level-6” so widespread death and damage were no longer required (another aspect of direct lying).
The story was, of course, picked up by major media outlets all over the world (echo chamber effect, fake consensus, never connected dots re W.H.O. lies), and quite soon, Swine Flu case numbers rose into the thousands (direct lying, as we’ll soon see).
Medical experts were brought in to bolster the claims of danger (biased experts; important dissenters never given space to comment).
In the early fall of 2009, Sharyl Attkisson, then a star investigative reporter for CBS News, published a story on the CBS News website. She indicated that the CDC had secretly stopped counting the number of Swine Flu cases in America. No other major news outlet reported this fact (omitting vital information).
Attkisson discovered the reason the CDC had stopped counting: the overwhelming number of blood samples taken from the most likely Swine Flu patients were coming back from labs with: no trace of Swine Flu or any other kind of flu. Therefore, a gigantic hoax was revealed. The pandemic was a dud, a fake.
Despite Attkisson’s efforts, CBS never followed up on her story (shutting down the truth after exposing it). Never probed the lying by the CDC (failure to connect dots). In a sense, CBS turned Attkisson’s story into a limited hangout—a further investigation would have uncovered acres of criminal behavior by both the CDC and the World Health Organization, to say nothing of the governments and media outlets that supported these lying agencies. The mainstream press essentially censored Attkisson’s revelations.
Then, about three weeks after CBS published Attkisson’s story, WebMD published a piece in which the CDC claimed that its own (lying) estimate of 10,000 or so cases of Swine Flu in the US was a gross understatement. Truly, there were 22 MILLION cases of Swine Flu in the US (doubling-down on lying).
And that was that.
Which leads to an 11th form of fake news: if one lie doesn’t quite fly, tell a much bigger lie.
And these mainstream sources are currently shouting and bloviating about independent media spreading fake news. I guess you could call that number 12: accusing their opponents of committing the crimes they are, in fact, committing.
Jon Rappoport
The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at NoMoreFakeNews.com or OutsideTheRealityMachine.
Reblogged this on Reiki Dawn and commented:
I totally agree with this post by Jon Rappaport. Especially points 11 and 12☺
Thanks for your thorough analysis of the various methods used by the “professional” purveyors of fake news. Based on my observations, the usage and frequency of these methods is increasing, indicating that the MSM is losing its battle against alternative news sources and the ability to mold the minds of the masses.
Much needed; many thanks.
I recently completed a university course (Documentary Film) using a book by Spence & Navarro, “Crafting Truth.” While I agree with your points, convincing any consumer of the truth of any matter doesn’t require any more than one insidious tool, using a technique known as the “voice of God.” Anytime you have some material broadcast, where the narrator is off camera and speaks over images that are meant to support the story, those images become facts because “God” (the voice you hear) has confirmed the truth. Of course, this works well on television “news” because people have become conditioned to believe that the news is comprised of facts…..where television works hard to discredit any information that is derived from “the internet.”
Thank you, Jon, for having the analytical ability to see and the courage to communicate reality to a frightened humanity.
Many know mainstream news & science are fake. Some of us think Hollywood movies & Madison Avenue advertising are intended to keep humans confused about reality.
i see a bumper sticker in your last statement: “many know…some of us think…confused…”
Olá JON.sempre bom ler voce.
P.s. acho que a mentira ,não se encontra apenas com a “grande mídia.”
“Ponha mais sacos para esses gatos.”
.
The citizenry are like amphibians, swimming in a very FISHY mainstream media ocean.
Big Media is ubiquitous – it’s everywhere. (And I include here the clever propaganda generated by the film industry.)
Even when we’re being “entertained” (how passive can one get?) our thoughts/worldview are often being manipulated.
And most important of all is the almost sudden stoppage of commenting on MANY mainstream presstitute ‘news’ outlets. Any article on New York Times, Guardian UK et al that deals with Syria and ISIS ‘moderates’ now have commenting turned off.
Why?
Because they know many readers will correct the lying authors and REMIND them that ISIS was in fact created, aided and abetted by US/NATO/Saudi Arabia/Qatar with Israel somehow feeling comfy giving Al Nusra and other terrorists medical care before sending the patsies back to fight against secular Assad. If this isn’t treason, I don’t really know what is.
Totally Orwellian to the max!
Our 2001 paper exposed neutron repulsion as the REAL source of energy that causes uranium and plutonium to fission in atomic bombs and nuclear fission reactors [“Neutron repulsion confirmed as energy source,”Journal of Fusion Energy 20, 197-201 (2001)]
http://www.springerlink.com/content/x1n87370x6685079/
The paper is dedicated to the memory of Mr. James-Alan Holt Powers (1984-2001), a student who avoided the brain-washing of public education and entered the University of Missouri on his 14th birthday.
Mr. Powers was captivated by information contained in the “Cradle of the Nuclides” (Figure 1), who suddenly died soon after his 17th birthday a senior in Nuclear Engineering.
Here’s the complete preprint: http://www.omatumr.com/abstracts2003/jfe-neutronrep.pdf
Isn’t swine flu a cover for “pollution” effects? So in fact the ripples of BS carry on into “supposedly” correct Media streams (i.e. specialist, independent and alternative) because focus is always skewed in some fashion.
Why?
Beyond removing minute particles of pig shit from the atmosphere, the issue is a big one. It would effect commerce, such as the oil industry. People would have to stop driving cars, many manufacturing and other businesses would have to shut down. All for “health”.
But actually people want double standards and that’s what they’ve got.
There is another side to this story (fake news). Can we assume people actually read articles, bulletins, broadsheets, etc. carefully enough to understand them? Not so, in my opinion.
“There’s a kind of “I see dead people” quality about Ken. He may not deliver as well as Haley Joel Osment in Sixth Sense, but there is still something gutturally compelling about his style. And those great gravures of his make him the trademark he is. In fact, the visual component of his legacy is probably more inspiring than his writings to many. Without the pictures, his writings would have lost the limelight and flopped in my opinion. He would be “unknown” today, but he wouldn’t have flopped because of poor writing. Far from it; but he would have struggled to capture the inspiration of the few that bother to read at all. Relative illiteracy is one of the great modern symptomatic social ills, arguably the consequence of the video age. People’s attention spans have diminished to such a degree that mostly only cute cardboard memes or action cartoons are deemed “intellectually bearable” to the point of considered comprehension. The way things are heading, all books of the future will have to be “pop up” to gain any worthy readership. It goes without saying; current would-be-authors are advised to provide at least one salacious picture for every small packed block of text….”
From https://exopolitician.wordpress.com/2017/01/01/moving-on-with-ken-bakeman-over-christmas/
Best
OT
pesticides sprayed in airline cabins on passengers on international flights (primarily to the Orient, to kill any ‘malaria-carrying’ mosquitos that may be on-board) can make people flu-like sick…
The SARS Epidemic: Are Viruses Taking the Rap for Industrial Poisons?
Posted on December 7, 2003 by Jim West
http://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/the-sars-epidemic-are-viruses-taking-the-rap-for-industrial-poisons/
~~~
same for drinking water with pig feces in it.
Theo, I don’t dispute that and Jon has done a magnificent job at raising awareness, but I still see “deflection” of the real issues just about everywhere I look.
Aren’t pesticides a POLLUTION symptom? That’s where the issue is. Pesticides are ONE OF the problems. What are the others? How to do chart cause/effect SINCERELY and HONESTLY?
We have a MSM which practices selective reporting with added spin. Their latest “reporting” involves Russian hacking with no substantial evidence to back it up. Even if it were true, does the media focus on the key point that the truth which came out in these emails showed Hillary Clinton, John Podesta and the vast majority of the DNC for who they really are: treasonous, narcissistic and arrogant maniacs with a total disconnect from the American citizenry.
Do they question Hillary Clinton and her gross negligence in using a private server to conduct state business, do they discuss how many US intelligence personnel she put in harms way, do they connect the dots and see the pay for play, do they question the debate questions that were given to her in advance by the MSM ? No, they concentrate on none of these relevant things but rather make the point that the “fake” news media had the audacity to highlight the truth about Hillary Clinton and the DNC. That this the truth which might have caused people not to vote for her. Only in a twisted world dearth of any logic could this fly. Only in an inverse reality could this crap remain in the news for weeks.
Where was Obama and the CIA when all those federal employees got hacked ? Where was Obama in regard to Russia’s involvement in Syria and the Ukraine? Oh now we are to be concerned about Russia! There should be face palms all around by anybody with an ounce of common sense.
Only in a country of human robots happy to be monitored and indoctrinated with liberal fascism and globalist propaganda 24/7 could such cognitive dissonance exist.
“The most dangerous untruths are truths slightly distorted.”
– Christoph Lichtenberg-
The media concentrates on a possible small truth and plays it up to their advantage in order delegitimize a president elect who puts America ahead of globalism. Are the Republicans, aka the new liberals and not yet the Marxist liberals of the Democrat party at no fault here? Don’t make me laugh, they are just as afraid themselves of being hacked and the spotlight of truth shining upon them.
When people realize Washington is totally broken and the MSM is its puppet, then maybe we could begin to fix things. It is really hard playing against a stacked deck, it really is almost impossible. But we as citizens need to keep thinking and exposing these globalist frauds in government/media for what the vast majority of them have become: treasonous and arrogant scumbags so devoid of reality they can no longer see or seek truth. Politicians who play politics with real human lives and are willing to sacrifice the very way of life of the citizens they pretend to represent. God, when is this tyranny going to be fully exposed. When will people finally have had enough of the phony bull peddled every day by this mainstream media, corrupt government and their globalist puppeteers.
In Europe it helps a lot that many people realized MSM is liestream after the coup in Ukraine. And then all the demonization of Putin; they saw it again against Trump,,,
You did realize that a majority of those supposed mainstream media lies about the coup in Ukraine, have since been admitted by the Kremlin to have been true?
Hello…this is a great piece…I would like to re-blog it on IST if that is okay….chuq
It’s important to explain that again and again as some newly awoken people think only pure lie is fake. still some of the more critical find it hard to mistrust everything but use MSM at the same time to find out the truth. what causes much damage are puzzle pieces the MSM put together in a false context; then it seems often impossible to tell the people that what is put together doesn’t fit together. but when we uncover soma false narratives in the US and in europe and share it this will educate the audience. when i began countering disinfo it helped me a lot that intelligence critical literature gave hints what was true and what was disinfo; so if a person uses disinfo that tells a lot about his role in an actual context. I was once in an organisation that turned out to be an intel front (green party in austria) and there i realized that media images of politicians follow US intel guidelines.
https://farsight3.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/cartoon-tv-aus.jpg
Reblogged in German at WORAN ERKENNST DU FAKENEWS?
Jon, My #1 complaint about the MSM would be the important stories that they DON’T COVER at ALL! There are manifold reasons for this inaction, but it really does tend to go a long way towards distorting our views of ourselves, our neighbors, and our nation at large.
Hmmm!
I think the part about the biased-experts could also be considered especially troublesome, considering that what our “organizations” are merely practicing, in the name of “science”, is a “scientific doctrine” (IE: NOT true science). Just look at how over-extended is the use of the “Genome Project” ‘studies’ in ruling many types of ills and “conditions” as “genetically-predisposed” or “congenital” conditions.
Then,
The sheer profitability of the “Lie”, is enough to corrupt many a good “study”, and therefore – most of the popular conclusions that the media gladly regurgitates to the public.
(Hmmm! A possible “13th” problem???)
– Jim
There should maybe also be mentioned a “form 9a”, as the antithesis to the ninth form from your list: giving equal exposure to a fringe group of dissenters to create the impression that there is an ongoing debate, where there is actually an overwhelming consensus.
That’s a good article.
But the author fails to mention or omits another form of fake support mechanism.
That mechanism is where the left-wing media sources use comedy shows to make fun of those taking opposing views to those presented as facts. Poking fun at the opposition or ridiculing the opposition, has been proven effective tools for the left, as witnessed by how many people actually take comedy programs as factual, like what SNL does with the Alec Baldwin skits where Trump is made to look foolish and incompetent and buffoonish and ignorant. Comedy central and the late shows on network TV, are go to mediums for the liberals. They understand their audience, and that audience comes away accepting the lies and jokes as being factual.