How Fake News Happens: It’s simple! A governor tweets a Fox News graphic from a story that cites a British tabloid’s misinterpretation of a scholarly study, and a false narrative about Biden banning beef stokes political rage

How dare President Biden be invoked by a British tabloid that rather creatively linked a scholarly study to a plan Biden floated during the Democratic primary. How dare Biden be implicated in a Fox News graphic that falsely lists cutting beef sales by 90% as a requirement of Biden’s “climate requirements.” How dare Biden be targeted by the Texas governor who retweeted the misleading Fox News graphic that amplified the…

Fox News, accused of manipulating news images, relabels them as “collages,” “regrets these errors”

Using bits and pieces of real news in order to distort the public perception of a story is unethical. Not all news organizations distort the truth this way. What do you think about the ones that do? Today, Fox re-labeled three different altered images, identifying each as a “collage” and posting a note that says the company “regrets these errors.” Fox used a dramatic photograph of a person running past…

There’s nothing like a fair-minded, good-faith analysis of the facts

There’s nothing like a fair-minded, good-faith analysis of the facts. And this article from PJMedia is nothing like a fair-minded, good faith analysis. I see it instead as a cynical attempt to cloud the truth by feeding conspiracy theories. An actual news story would lead with the evidence — any charges filed against Gugino, quotes from a witness whose first-hand experiences challenge the mainstream interpretation of the video, behind-the-scenes photos…

Police Department, Fire Department Tell Different Versions of Same Richmond Incident

A Richmond police official and a fire official agree that Sunday, multiple individuals interfered with a fire truck’s response to a fire. But beyond that, each source tells a rather different story.

I just watched a pretty good Star Trek episode exploring the premise that well-intentioned people can remember and sincerely believe widely different interpretations of the same events, without being intentionally deceptive.

When equally credible sources make conflicting claims, there’s probably a story there somewhere. If a source makes unverifiable claims, or won’t respond to legitimate follow-up questions, or vilifies or aggrandizes a third party, that’s a good reason to be skeptical.

Meme unfairly blames “protesters” for four crimes

A Facebook meme that claims “3 of these 4 honorable men were killed by ‘protesters’” is false. I don’t mean that I can prove that not a single one of the guilty parties ever participated in a protest. However, Police never connected Beaty’s death with the protests (and the FBI declined to do so when asked). Police sent out an alert that specified Underwood’s death was unrelated to protests. Dorn…

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Minneapolis protest cleanup: Did you share this meme without fact-checking it? (Don’t spread fake news about the news.)

A Facebook meme with 52k reactions and 37k shares includes pictures of volunteers cleaning the streets in Minneapolis, the day after mass protests of the death of George Floyd. The pictures make a powerful point about the values of the community. However, the text includes an unnecessary slam against journalism, because it introduces the images with “Images you won’t see in the news.” I searched news.google.com for “minneapolis protesters cleaning”…