They will have no fear of bad news; their hearts are steadfast, trusting in the Lord.
— Psalm 112:7
I noticed a news story in the Daily Post last Wednesday, announcing that The Democratic Club is holding their monthly lunch event at the Coyote Moon today — Monday, September 30 — starting at 11:30am.
Their guest speaker is Fort Lewis College philosophy professor Justin McBrayer, lecturing on the topic of “fake news”. Reportedly, he will “explain why fake news is so rampant in today’s society.”
I’m hoping against hope that he won’t mention my columns here in the Daily Post. (I’m halfway tempted to attend the lunch event and seat myself in the front row, with a suitably threatening look on my face.)
This assumes, of course, that Professor McBrayer is actually giving a lecture today at the Coyote Moon… because, for all we know, this could be fake news, appearing as it did in an online “news” outlet.
Historically, news of the world — fake or otherwise — traveled by word of mouth. Anyone who has played the game “Telephone” knows how that turned out.
Later on, when the printing press was invented, governments had to step in to make sure the news was fake. In England, for example, the government passed the “Licensing Act” which created a system to license printing companies, and to ban “seditious opinions”.
“Seditious” meaning “potentially accurate”.
For whatever reason, Parliament allowed the Licensing Act to lapse in 1695, which allowed newspaper to invent their own news.
Newspapers spouted up like weeds in colonial America during the Revolutionary era, with the help of the 1792 Postal Service Act. Back then, a newspaper typically copied its content from other newspapers. The Postal Service Act allowed newspaper companies to exchange copies of their newspaper, postage free, through the U.S. mail, and greatly facilitated the spread of fake news.
We have something very similar happening today, with free online news outlets like MSNBC, FOX News, and the Daily Post... and don’t get me started about social media platforms…
You can find fake news pretty much everywhere you look. You don’t even need to try to find it. It will find you.
To understand this issue better — or maybe, to misunderstand it better — I looked up the origins of the word, “news”. Apparently, there’s nothing “new” about “news”. It’s discussed in the Book of Genesis. For example:
When the news reached Pharaoh’s palace that Joseph’s brothers had come, Pharaoh and all his officials were pleased.
We’re not told how, exactly, the news reached the Pharoah’s palace, back in those days. By donkey? News is a lot less dangerous when it travels by donkey, I assume. In this case, Joseph’s brothers had indeed arrived, so the news was not fake.
I also learned that the English word “news” may be related linguistically to the German word, “Neues”… although it’s a bit tricky, because “neues” — with a lower case “n” — can be applied to anything that’s “new”. A “neues” pair of shoes. Or a “neues” donkey.
But if you capitalize the “N” to make it “Neues”, it means “news”. So, probably fake. You could easily get confused. Makes me glad I’m not German.
While newspapers and news websites actually exist in reality, “news” is purely the creation of journalists (and wanna-be journalists) working late at night to get the column finished and collect their paycheck.
This raises the question: Can something invented by a journalist ever be considered “real”? I would argue that “fake” means “a poor quality imitation of something that’s real.”
Like “fake flowers”. Or “fake leather upholstery”.
But if the news was never “real” in the first place… then, how can it ever be “fake”?
In this journalist’s opinion, when we say “fake… news” we’re merely repeating ourselves.