fake news

Theologian and author Albert Mohler is encouraging Christians not to fall for Russian "fake news" amidst its war on Ukraine, saying believers are called to "seek the truth" and think rationally.

Chip and Joanna Gaines are facing criticisms after a political donation made by the couple was misrepresented in the media.

Despite the Colorado mass shooter reportedly being an immigrant from Syria who practices Islam, Newsweek reports that a Twitter spokesperson told the outlet that calling the gunman a “White Christian terrorist" does not violate the social media platform’s misinformation policies.

I’m tired of bias, of opinion pieces masquerading as reporting, of buried leads and hysterical fearmongering. Apparently, many Americans are tired of these things, too.

Former New York Times writer, Bari Weiss, recently published a piece warning of a “danger, this one from the left … one that has attained cultural dominance, capturing America’s elites and our most powerful institutions.”

“I am here to ring the alarm,” writes Weiss. “I’m here to say: Do not be shocked anymore … It’s time to accept reality, if we want to have any hope of fixing it.” Weiss describes a growing and institutionally enforced anti-Semitism, and proceeds to list a series of incidents that she says cannot be accurately understood as isolated, but instead as an essential and insidious component of the new liberalism, a “mixture of postmodernism, postcolonialism, identity politics, neo-Marxism, critical race theory, intersectionality, and the therapeutic mentality.”

Broadcast, digital, and social media have made it easier than ever for us to curate our news feeds, consuming only those sources whose opinions agree with ours. As the partisan divides in our country continue to widen, these echo chambers are only reinforcing our positions and our rejection of those who disagree with us.

In an age of information, “extremely online people,” meaning those who rely primarily on social media for their political news, are among the least informed and most easily-deceived groups in America.

Misleading voices on both the left and the right confidently asserted the virus really wasn’t that bad. More than one conservative talk show host, motivated to keep the President’s wins front and center, compared Covid-19 to the common cold or seasonal flu. And more than a few liberal voices also downplayed the seriousness of COVID-19, apparently hoping to cease an opportunity to portray Trump’s travel restrictions to China as racist or otherwise misguided.

Savannah Guthrie, one of the anchors on NBC’s Today show, interviewed Covington student Nick Sandmann yesterday morning. I watched the interview, then watched the response. It was as though two completely different conversations took place.

No one at Twitter, Buzzfeed, or the Washington Post got gum stuck in their hair, or fell into a mud puddle or got stuck with lima beans for dinner –at least as far as I know. But, still, last week wasn’t great for the American news media.