In many ways, it is the progressive left who are responsible for the entire fake news controversy that is now sweeping the nation. Last December, Hillary Clinton warned about fake news at a ceremony for outgoing Senator Harry Reid. “It is now clear that so-called fake news can have real world consequences,” Clinton said. “This isn’t about politics or partisanship. Lives are at risk.” Just one month prior, Barack Obama made a similar warning: “And people, if they just repeat attacks enough, and outright lies over and over again, as long as it’s on Facebook and people can see it… people start believing it,” he said, adding that “it creates this dust cloud of nonsense.”

This, in addition to dozens of liberal talking heads warning their audiences about right wing fake news, makes it reasonable to conclude that they are the ones who started the entire controversy. And yet, in doing so, all that the liberals did was paint a big red target on their backs – no one lies and spreads misinformation more than they do.

Now, following the release of Vault 7 documents via Wikileaks, BuzzFeed has been caught lying yet again. According to Wikileaks, BuzzFeed published false information regarding Apple, claiming that the company “patched the vulnerabilities mentioned in the Wikileaks dump of CIA cyber tools” when in reality they hadn’t. Wikileaks appropriately labeled this as “fake news.”

The language used by BuzzFeed led readers to assume that all of the vulnerabilities exposed in the Vault 7 leaks had been patched. However, in BuzzFeed’s own article, Apple clearly states, “[O]ur initial analysis indicates that many of the issues leaked today were already patched in the latest IOS…” In other words, Apple was simply explaining that some of the vulnerabilities had been addressed since the exploits were discovered. They never stated that all of them had been fixed.

This wasn’t the first time that BuzzFeed was caught circulating fake news. In January, the Internet media company ran a story about a 35-page dossier that contained serious but unverified allegations about Donald Trump. The information inside of the documents that BuzzFeed released also contained allegations regarding Trump’s ties to Russia. CNN, which is another left wing media outlet, took this story and ran with it for hours. All of this information was fed to the public without a single shred of evidence that it was truthful and legitimate.

Ben Smith, the Editor in Chief of BuzzFeed explained that they chose to publish the unverified story in order to reflect what they believe to be the job of reporters in 2017. “Our presumption is to be transparent in our journalism and to share what we have with our readers,” Smith said. “We have always erred on the side of publishing. In this case, the document was in wide circulation at the highest levels of American government and media.”

Smith went on to say that “publishing the document was not an easy or simple call” and that “people of good will may not disagree with our choice.” However, Smith concluded, “Publishing this dossier reflects how we see the job of reporters in 2017.”

Believe it or not, there was a time when the media consisted of real journalists who wanted to give the people factual information. They reported on all sides of the issues, and at times it was difficult to detect any political bias whatsoever. Today, the mainstream media seems to be made up of activists, all of which are willing to lie and spin in order to see their own agendas come into fruition. Journalism is dead in America, and much of it has been replaced with fake news.

Sources

DisobedientMedia.com

NYtimes.com

Telegraph.co.uk

Politico.com