It pains me that so many people parroting the stupid “fake news” refrain of the Orange Thrush don’t understand how that usually turns out.
Hitler is often the first tyrant we think of when we think of campaigns against an honest press. Yes, Hitler is an excellent example, and Trump’s mentality is basically Hitler’s minus a few dozen IQ points. But Trump and Hitler are far from the only ones to slur anyone who dared report the truth on them. And the reasons for muzzling the press are always the same – as in, the clown crying about the press wants to go about whatever his business is with impunity. Said clowns nearly always set up their own “news” agencies as well, to continue to befuddle and bamboozle those stupid enough to follow them to begin with (and to put their own narrative in the public discussion.) Once unencumbered by the press, you can do astounding things, like starve millions into submission in Ukraine, or set up a system of extermination camps to eliminate countless millions of those you see inferior (fun fact: a lot of people thought the Soviet reports on the death camps they found in German-occupied Europe were “fake news” due to the Soviet habit of making shit up. I kid you not.) And the ultimate fake news hater, Pol Pot, turned an entire nation into a vast death camp, while his propagandists wailed about the “lies” defectors were bringing out of the country.
The idiots now gleefully parroting the Nazi moron in Washington have no concept of actual history, as is usually the case with stupid people. If they bothered to check into history, they’d learn about things like the “Night of the Long Knives” in Germany, or the “Great Purge” in 1930s-era Russia. Press-hating tyrants destroy their most ardent supporters just as quickly as they’ll destroy their worst perceived enemies. When you back a monster, you can’t be shocked if one day the monster decides that maybe you’ll taste better than the others he’s eaten. Men without conscience never make mistakes, and are never sorry about who they destroy. The Trumps of the world have no friends, and no loyalties, to any but themselves. The fool screaming “fake news” today may be screaming in pain tomorrow from the torture, or the piercing of the bullet.
The US has an incredibly impotent mainstream media as-is, and their failures in the past have made it much easier to label anything they say now as “fake news”, even when it surely isn’t. And I honestly don’t feel sorry for outlets like the New York Times or CNN when they get attacked, because I remember how gleefully they peddled trash about Hillary Clinton, paving the way for the monster in Washington. But I don’t have to rely on them as sources (nobody should, really.) I sample from a variety of domestic and foreign sources, like Truthout in the US. I don’t always agree with them, but I do believe they’re trying to report the truth, and I respect their reporting, even when I disagree with the opinion. For foreign points of view, I find Deutsche Welle, the Guardian in the UK, and Xinhua to be fairly straightforward reporters of facts. Yes, I trust the Chinese state news agency more than I trust CNN.
Look them up. You’ll see why soon enough. Look at all the sources I mentioned. And if you have sources you see as honest, I’d be interested in hearing about it.