It’s a documented, historical fact existing power structures control the dominant media and enlist the media’s help to shape public opinion. They paint landscapes and narratives in the minds of the masses; and create ‘well-established facts’ by consensus which may or may not be true; masking agendas of these same power structures. If you can’t accept this simple fact, you just don’t know your history, and this web site can help with that if you are interested.
So, for a few centuries, the American oligarchy created false narratives and false histories that do not hold up under dispassionate, critical analysis based on original sourced documents. If you received your education from one of the American public school systems, universities, or the news and entertainment media, what you think you know is just not true.
The truth of these matters can be difficult to determine if you are not equipped with the tools for the job. Firstly, it is important to recognize unexamined assumptions; and secondly, is important to be able to recognize common logical fallacies that trick most of us most of the time; if your assumptions are wrong, all logic that flows henceforth is suspect, even if your logic is perfect. A thorough examination of your unexamined assumptions can be scary, because you may be required to ‘gore your own ox’ in the pursuit of truth; this can be upsetting for many, and perhaps not worth destroying ingrained, cherished belief systems.
Our oligarchy first finessed control of the print media, then the radio and television and of course Hollywood; but with the advent of the internet, little truth-rays of light have been able to escape the otherwise well-controlled media. The oligarchy is very upset about this, so you can expect major moves to bring the internet under their control. They are just now working this out, but have made great progress recently with major internet players like Google, YouTube, and Facebook. To give the appearance of objectivity, the ‘ministry of truth and all goodness’ has elicited the help of Snopes, PolitiFact and others as the ‘final arbiters of truth’, just in case there was a question amongst the masses. This is not to say everything from Google, YouTube, Facebook, Snopes or PolitiFact is false, because it is not. Most of what is printed or filtered for consumption contains the required measure of truth to make it plausible if not entirely believable. The problem arises with the unexamined assumptions and the logical fallacies mentioned above.
On the matter of FAKE news. After the painful and unexpected loss of their rigged 2016 presidential election, our overlords have come up with a new method to constrain the alternative news using their newly minted Ministry of Truth; so I thought now would be a good time to find out how to determine what is fake and what is not.
There are many kinds of fake news sites. On one end of the spectrum, you have news satire siteslike The Onion or the Babylon Bee that make no bones about what they are up to. They blatantly make outlandish claims like the US will be painting the White House pink. This pink story even fooled the official Chinese news service who embarrassingly repeated this fake, but very funny story. This was a painful lesson for our authoritarian Chinese friends, but a lesson none the less they have yet to learn. They continue to be fooled. I read the Onion for fun, but never, ever post the Onion articles to my FB page, since many will share and re-post as fact.
Another kind of fake news site is one that does not source any of their fact-claims, they just make statements of opinion and present them as fact. They may be true or not, but can never be trusted. Usually just click-bait to satisfy your own prejudices: think confirmation bias.
Other sites are run or financed by the CIA for a myriad of reasons. One of their favorite tricks is to place something in the news that will later prove to be false. The fake news item is repeated by all those in the alt media who do no fact checking or sourcing, thus making the alt news folks look stupid… and many are. It’s a fun game.
Another CIA game is the limited hangout. The CIA uses this technique when they have been caught with their pants down. They will release just enough true information to give credibility but try to steer the public around the real data –or unanswered questions– hidden within. This is my opinion on Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald and The Intercept. Why? Check my articles at ClearNFO: search for Snowden. (The Intercept, somehow escaped inclusion in The FAKE 200; heavy /S)
I’ve divided the News into the following four (4) Categories:
1. FAKE but fun
2. FAKE with malice and forethought
3. FAKE without malice or forethought
4. REAL news sites
***NEWS Categories***
-FOR FUN
• News satire sites like ‘The Onion’
• I’ve listed others at the bottom of this article.
-WITH MALICE & FORETHOUGHT (Key Indicators: Heavy use of logical fallacies, omission of key data, concentrated ownership, interlocking board of directors and ties to big business and big government )
• MSM: ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, NYT, Washington Post, etc.
• The Economist
• WSJ
• Wikipedia yes, our beloved Wikipedia … sad but true.
• CIA PSYOPS
— Working with the MSM to shape public opinions (see Operation Mockingbird)
— Setting up fake news sites to help paint public landscape
— Releasing plausible but fake stories to embarrass those who repeat without verifying
— Limited Hangouts: Example ‘The Intercept’. Characteristics: well-funded and CIA connections. When their veil of secrecy is shredded and they can no longer rely on a phony cover story to misinform the public, they resort to admitting — sometimes even volunteering — some of the truth while still managing to withhold the key and damaging facts in the case. The public, however, is usually so intrigued by the new information that it never thinks to pursue the matter further.
-WITHOUT MALICE OR FORETHOUGHT:
• Blinded by ideology
• Blinded by the desire to please their financial supporters
• Lazy, ignorant
-REAL NEWS SITES:
• Good: James Corbett of The Corbett Report (See my links tab at ClearNFO for more good sites)
• Bad:CFR. The CFR is one of the major sources of evil on this planet, but they are generally very truthful about what their plans are. You may have to read between the lines a bit and it helps if you understand their origin and their plans for a one world government. A good place to start is with James Perloff’s excellent book, The Shadows of Power or with The Quigley Formula video on YouTube by G. Edward Griffin.
WHAT TO LOOK FOR: • Where does their money come from?
• Who is on their board of directors?
• Who are the owners?
• Do they site sources? (quoting anonymous sources with no evidence is a sure tip-off)
• Do they date their news articles?
• Do they EXAGGERATE their headlines?
• Does their headline match the content?
• Is the site geared for click-bait?
• Reputation? Good, bad or none?
Notable news satire outlets
Academia Caţavencu (Romania)
The Beaverton (Canada)
The Betoota Advocate (Australia)
Broken Newz
The Chaser (Australia)
The Civilian (New Zealand)
The Noose (Singapore)
The Clinic (Chile)
The Daily Currant (U.S.)
The Daily Mash (UK)
Disassociated Press
“El Mundo Today” (Spain)
El Jueves (Spain)
Faking News (India)
Feral Tribune (Croatia)
Frank (Canada)
Le Gorafi (France)
Grönköpings Veckoblad (Sweden)
Lush For Life (U.S.), abandoned 2007
Moskovskaya Komsomolka (Russia)
National Report (U.S.)
NewsBiscuit (UK)
The Onion (U.S.)
The Oxymoron (UK)
The Pan Arabia Enquirer (Middle East)
The Phoenix (Ireland)
Private Eye (UK)
SatireWire (U.S.)
ScrappleFace (U.S.)
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (U.S.)
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (U.S.)
Titanic (Germany)
The True North Times (Canada)
Uncyclopedia’s UnNews
The UnReal Times (India)
Weekend Update from Saturday Night Live (U.S.)
Weekly World News (U.S.)
Zaytung (Turkey)
If the news site contains the following domain names, it is likely a purveyor of fake news:
The Smith–Mundt Act of 1948banned the US Government from producing propaganda aimed at US Citizens. On July 2, that came silently to an end with the implementation of a new reform passed in January. The result: an unleashing of thousands of hours per week of government-funded radio and TV programs for domestic U.S. consumption in a reform initially criticized as a green light for U.S. domestic propaganda efforts.
Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 (part of the National Defense Authorization Act) has repealed the domestic prohibition, allowing the government’s broadcasting to be directed at/created for Americans for the first time in over 40 years. Jul 15, 2013
BBG (Broadcasting Board of Governors): The mission of the Broadcasting Board of Governors is to inform, engage, and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy. The agency’s mission is reinforced by those of the individual broadcasters that are overseen by the BBG.
The 25 Rules of Disinformation | May 24, 2011 From Twenty-Five Ways To Suppress Truth: The Rules of Disinformation (Includes The 8 Traits of A Disinformationalist) by H. Michael Sweeney. These 25 rules are everywhere in media, from political debates, to television shows, to comments on a blog.
in the minds of the masses; and create ‘well-established facts’ by consensus which may or may not be true; masking agendas of these same power structures. If you can’t accept this simple fact, you just don’t know your history, and this web site can help with that if you are interested.