Dimitri (not his real name) is not your typical teenager. He\u2019s a go-getter who rakes in thousands of dollars per month with his successful web business. Considering that Dimitri lives in Macedonia, where the average wage is about $400 per month, he\u2019s a wildly successful entrepreneur.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s only one problem: Dimitri makes his money spreading fake news<\/a>.<\/p>\n Dimitri, and other teenagers like him, run political websites designed to look like well-known news outlets, publishing made-up stories and distributing them through social media. These stories, with headlines like \u201cObama Refuses to Leave Office,\u201d or \u201cTrump to Deport All Refugees,\u201d generate enough ad revenue to make Dimitri a wealthy young man.<\/p>\n Much has been made in recent weeks about the rise of \u201cfake news<\/a>,\u201d and how it impacted the 2016 U.S. political election. Social media made it easy to amplify unfounded rumors<\/a>. Traditional media outlets sometimes picked up hoax stories<\/a>. And ambitious high schoolers like Dimitri posted articles that they made up during biology class.<\/p>\n There\u2019s only one problem with this storyline: it assumes that \u201creal news\u201d and \u201cfake news\u201d are completely separate, as if news stories are either black or white. But today there are more shades of grey than Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s wardrobe. Here\u2019s why.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We\u2019ve created an imaginary line in the sand, with \u201creal news\u201d on one side and \u201cfake news\u201d on the other. But what about left-leaning media outlets (like Mother Jones<\/a>) and right-leaning media outlets (like Fox News<\/a>)? What about blog posts? Opinionated tweets?<\/p>\n The chart at the top of the article shows Google News stories on two critical issues of our time: Trump\u2019s feud with Rosie O\u2019Donnell vs. Trump\u2019s pick for Secretary of Treasury. The Treasury secretary will make real-world decisions that will affect the global economy for generations to come. Yet there are over 30 times more news stories about Trump and Rosie O\u2019Donnell.<\/p>\n At one time, the media was necessary to know what was going on in the world. Before the Internet, how could you possibly find out what was happening in Washington, Moscow, or Beijing? The media told us what was going on, and we trusted them implicitly. When the great Walter Cronkite ended every newscast with his signature tagline, \u201cThat\u2019s the way it is,\u201d well, that\u2019s the way things were.<\/p>\nThe Imaginary Line in the Sand<\/strong><\/h2>\n