Fake News... actual Fake News

[Jimmy Higgins]

link (gifted)

This isn't fake news, I mean the article is real, and it is about fake news. So it is a real article about fake news that's real.

Published in the “West Cook News,” the story purported to reveal that a suburban Chicago school would soon be giving students different grades depending on their race. It started like this:
“Oak Park and River Forest High School administrators will require teachers next school year to adjust their classroom grading scales to account for the skin color or ethnicity of its students. … In an effort to equalize test scores among racial groups, OPRF will order its teachers to exclude from their grading assessments variables it says disproportionally hurt the grades of black students. They can no longer be docked for missing class, misbehaving in school or failing to turn in their assignments, according to the plan.”

It found a ready audience. “But of course,” tweeted the conservative author Andrew Sullivan, as he shared the story to his hundreds of thousands of followers.

...

The school issued an unequivocal statement denying the story. While school board members have considered all sorts of research about grading practices — the bogus story relied on out-of-context material presented in a meeting for discussion — the school “does not, nor has it ever had a plan to, grade any students differently based on race.”

...

With names such as the Des Moines Sun and Illinois Valley Times, they leverage the trust that people have for local newspapers, built up over many decades, to boost their own dubious credibility. Their content is “rooted in deception, eschewing hallmarks of news reporting like fairness and transparency,” according to a New York Times investigation that referred to them as “Pay-for-Play” outlets.

It is alive and well, and real... in its fakeness. Reminding us that in general, if a piece of news angers us, we should be more vigilant in double-checking it.

Ultimately, this stuff gets out there, confirms preconceived biases, and then it doesn't matter if it was redacted by people, it is as real in the minds of those that want it to be. Because they'll respond, 'well yeah, that was fake, but not the others and it is happening everywhere*'

* - evidence supporting claim not made.