Fake News on Russia and Other Official Enemies
NOVANEWS
The New York Times, 1917–2017
By Edward S. Herman
Monthly Review
It has been amusing to watch the New York Times and other mainstream media outlets express their dismay over the rise and spread of “fake news.” These publications take it as an obvious truth that what they provide is straightforward, unbiased, fact-based reporting. They do offer such news, but they also provide a steady flow of their own varied forms of fake news, often by disseminating false or misleading information supplied to them by the national security state, other branches of government, and sites of corporate power.
An important form of mainstream media fake news is that which is presented while suppressing information that calls the preferred news into question. This was the case with “The L...