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.
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....
Hey Gavin,
ReplyDeleteI 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!