Techniques of 19th-Century Fake News Reporter Teach Us Why We Fall for It Today
Today’s fake news stories are also written from inside a closed mass media system. It’s one of the main reasons why these yarns – even the absurd ones – seem credible enough to get picked up: They recombine news bits, names, images, people and sites that we have already seen in similar contexts. Once this backdrop of credibility has been established, the sensational, made-up elements can be introduced all the more convincingly.
Take one of the fake news masterpieces from last year’s campaign trail, the bogus story about stacks of ballot boxes that had “turned up” in a warehouse in Ohio and supposedly contained fraudulent Clinton votes. Cameron Harris, the 23-year-old college graduate who authored the story, later explained to The New York Times how he had approached the topic: He knew he had to connect his story to a familiar narrative in order to get it off the ground.
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