Fake News Vs Bad News Vs Real news

Fake news: blatant lies, no real sources or established credibility.
Bad news: commercially sponsored information, which sometimes true, is usually altered for profit.
Real news: established organizations with longstanding journalists who's credibility are vetted, along with their sources.

Probably going to get a lot of flak for the last one. The bigger news organizations, the ones that have 24 hour news cycles used to be democracy's sober second thought. In many ways they still are. But the hunt for ratings has turned these news giants into something more partisan and less interested in properly informing the electorate. MSNBC for the left and FOX for the right. FOX has created this new model and it made them #1. And so other news organizations have followed suit.

FOX news has been running a war on Christmas bit every year like clockwork. Not because it's news. Not because there is an actual war on the biggest American and Christian holiday(cause that's obvious to anyone who looks outside and sees Christmas decorations everywhere that christmas is doing just fine). But because it fires people up. Get's them riled up and outraged that so and so county in so and so state sent out a happy holidays card instead of merry Christmas cards. Fox news has discovered a way to take small news stories that shouldn't be news at all and sensationalize it(kinda like ron burgundy reporting that car chase).I may be bashing FOX, but I still consider it real news. I've seen them retract something and apologize when they get something wrong. I've seen a supposed right wing media machine put it's own republican people on the spot. Megyn Kelly's interview with Dick Cheney for example.

CNN is just horrible and MSNBC is a biased as FOX. CNN owner even said he put Trump on tv way more than he should've because there were always higher ratings when he's on tv. Hell even a 20 minute video of an empty podium where trump might speak gets them higher ratings than whatever boring stuff is happening in Syria.

People are governed by their emotions far more than by reason, especially in an election cycle. Which is why so many people fell for the masses of fake stories being poured into the Internet by some computer technicians from Greece. The more clicks they get, the more revenue they get. So they create click-bait stories, from Melissa McCarthy is dead to Hillary Clinton has murdered 27 people and consumed their souls. Sure it sounds silly when I put it that way, but their is no difference between her being a soul consuming demon and whatever non-sense is in all these lies. Which is one of the things that bothers me the most, she already has plenty of legitimate scandals to complain about if your against her. Why use fake news as your "gotcha!" when someone asks why you don't like her. Like her scandals are either too small or complicated to talk about, so her having an FBI agent assassinated is not only much bigger but easier to express than her actual scandals.

Fake news stories are believed by people who want their world views reinforced. Some old news pundit from the 50s once said that the biggest threat to American democracy was the polarization of politics right down the middle. That left leaning people would only read news from left leaning news papers and vice versa for the right. Constantly reading news stories that reinforce your values, isolates you from the other half of the country. And when it comes time to compromise, it's nearly impossible because either side thinks the other is evil and wrong. This time it's even worse though. Because it's now turned into reading fake news to reinforce your values. Something that dude from the 50s never even thought about.

The dissemination of misinformation as news is more prevalent on the right than on the left. Yea yea, they both get fake news. But it's easier to convince right wingers of a fake story because they're often rooted in common right wing conspiracies. Calm down people, left wingers get convinced of stupid conspiracies also because of fake news. As you have no doubt noticed in recent years there has been an uptake on the cases of mumps,measles and other communicable diseases in the US. These pockets of sick kids are in left leaning areas. Stupid parents think they and their fake news articles know better than someone who studied 8+ years to become a doctor. Point is, there are lots of stupid people on both sides.

Bad news is almost as dangerous as fake news. It presents itself like news and sometimes has facts that can be verified. But they're the news stories that are actually ads. Corporations that write news stories that help their product. Like a news story about the rising cost of car insurance and then a plug in the story about how geico hasn't risen it's rates like their competition. Last few episodes of season 19 of south park are all about how Americans are being tricked into reading news stories that are actually ads.

To the people who don't trust news organizations and prefer their brand of Internet news, to the people who don't trust journalists I say this:
What do you think people who go into journalism do it for? Do you honestly believe that all these people study journalism just to write fake stories. It's not for the money, they don't get paid anything. Perhaps it's to make a difference in the world, perhaps it's to uncover hidden truths or maybe they just want to chronicle the events of our time. No doubt journalists have their own opinion and often make them known in this new era of news. However, to those non-partisan journalists who seek the truth no matter who this truth would effect, I think they're the best hope for real news and a well informed electorate.

To the Tom Brokaws of this world, never let them shut you up.