Skip to main content

Current Event 2

Do you know the saying “don't listen to everything you hear.” Well, there's some truth to that. In 2017 Michae Flynn, who was President Trump's national security advisor at the time, pleaded guilty for making false statements to the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigations). These allegations relate to the Special Counsel investigation, which was an investigation of russian interference in the 2016 election. Apparently, Flynn was discussing US sanctions on Russia with the Russian ambassador Sergey I. Kislyak before Trump was officially in office (Higgins 2017). The white house wanted to make it clear that President Trump had no prior knowledge of Flynn's conversations with the Russians, but one reporter didn't get the message (Kessler 2017). One of ABC’s investigative reporters, Brian Ross, had said on ABC’s World News Tonight that President-elect Trump asked Flynn to contact Russia to talk about how they can work together to fight ISIS (Schwartz 2017). Hours later though ABC came out with a tweet that said they had made a “serious error,” and that Brian Ross’s statement was wrong. They had made corrections on air, and on the internet (The Associated Press 2017). If the statement he had made was true then Trump would have been linked to the Russian interference investigation (The Associated Press 2017). Ross was spreading fake news by using his power as a journalist to try and get people to believe President Trump was involved with Russia. So don't listen to everything you hear becuase sometimes even the people we trust to give us the news can be wrong. In recent news though, it came out that Flynn had been set up by the FBI to keep the russian interference investigation alive. The FBI had set up a perjury trap, hoping that Flynn would make misstatements that they could portray as lies (McCarthy 2020). So what does this have to do with fake news? Well, all of it! A man's life was ruined just to cripple the Trump administration, and the media exploited the false allegations for almost 2 years. Once the news media outlets started making their headlines say “Michael Flynn pleads guilty,” they were helping the corrupt bureau push the investigation further. 

Comments

  1. Jeremy HaleyMay 9, 2020 at 1:17 PM

    Hey Gavin,

    I enjoyed reading your blog. Nice job! I think this topic is of great importance especially in todays age where information, and misinformation is readily available on almost all media platforms. I also appreciated your what experts say post where you provided tips for spotting fake news in order to identify it and avoid it. Staying informed with the correct information is one of the most important aspects of being a good citizen and maintaining democracy so thank you for exploring this topic!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bibliography  30, seconds. “Why Is Fake News Invented?” 30sec To Check It Out , 2019, 30secondes.org/en/module/why-is-fake-news-invented/. Brown, Eileen. “9 Out of 10 Americans Don't Fact-Check Information They Read on Social Media.” ZDNet , ZDNet, 10 May 2017, www.zdnet.com/article/nine-out-of-ten-americans-dont-fact-check-information-they-read-on-social-media/ . Higgins, Tucker. “Michael Flynn, Trump's Ex-National Security Adviser, Pleads Guilty to Lying to the FBI; Now Cooperating with Russia Probe.” CNBC , CNBC, 18 Jan. 2019, www.cnbc.com/2017/12/01/court-schedules-plea-hearing-for-flynn-at-1030-am-et.html. McCarthy, Andrew. “Andrew McCarthy: FBI Set up Michael Flynn to Pursue Trump-Russia Investigation.” Fox News , FOX News Network, 3 May 2020, www.foxnews.com/opinion/andrew-mccarthy-fbi-set-up-michael-flynn-to-pursue-trump-russia-investigation. Nagler, Christina. “4 Tips for Spotting a Fake News Story.” Harvard Summer School , 1 Nov. 2018, www.summer.harvard....
Post a Comment
Read more

What the Experts Say 2

So why is there even fake news and who invented it? You could say fake news started with President Donald Trump in 2016, but people have been lying about the news probably since the first newspaper. In an article called “Why is Fake News Invented?” from 30seconds.org, fake news can come from anyone and with the internet they can post anything anonymously. People can also spread fake news for multiple reasons, whether it is to promote an ideology, or even a product, but most of the time it’s for money, especially with major news outlets (30secounds 2019). The major news outlets mostly care about rating because their ratings are linked to their advertising slots, which is how they get paid. If they got low ratings all the time other companies wouldn't want to advertise on their broadcast or website. It's all about the clicks! https://30secondes.org/en/module/why-is-fake-news-invented/
Post a Comment
Read more

Current Event 1

(only watch first couple of minutes) CNN (Cable News Network) is the number one American news channel that definitely has the reputation of leaning left on most topics. One topic that seems to never leave the headlines is President Donald Trump. If you have ever watched CNN they usually never have anything good to say about President Trump. Lately CNN has been covering President Trump's daily whitehouse briefings about the coronavirus pandemic. At one of these briefings President Trump was commenting on how they learned disinfectants can kill the virus and his exact words were "and then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in one minute. Is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning ... it would be interesting to check that” (Valinsky 2020). After this comment was made media outlets such as CNN and MSNBC (claims to be left wing) were scrambling to spread fake news and make their headlines say something along the lines of ...
Post a Comment
Read more