“Fact Checkers” and “Fake News”

A dear friend of mine who lives in the D.C. area shared with me this correspondence with his older brother.

The email he shared first explained why he is sharing it and it follows: My conservative friends- I thought I’d share a response I wrote to my brother in regards to him “fact-checking” something I emailed to him.  Some of you may have seen the viral email about how many personal assistants Michelle Obama has, the cost to taxpayers, and comparing that to other First Ladies.  Whether the email is true or not was not the point of my response to my brother.  Having been in the communications/media relations business for more than 40 years I share some wisdom gained.

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Now, here is the original note:

Brother:

Your query actually brings up a much broader concern for now and especially in the future.  When one wants to fact-check something how do they typically do that?  The most common thing is to open up their Internet browser to Google, Yahoo, or Bing or whatever their favorite search engine is and type in “how many personal assistants does Michelle Obama have?”  I used Bing and if you do that you’ll see several sites that purport to answer your question.  Here’s where the problem begins with any such Internet query:

• First, before I even finished typing that question it filled in the rest, “assuming it knew where I was going.” How does that happen?  Something or somebody filled in the rest.  Actually it’s based on an algorithm and an almost-instant search of what is trending for the search of that string of words.  But somebody had to originally write that algorithm – that computer code – – to “help” finish the question.  Who did that?  Was it a conservative?  Was it a liberal?  Was it somebody totally devoid of any political thought?
• Second, once the list of sites appears after your search, who decided that they should be listed in that order (some of that is decided by the owners of the sites – it’s called Search Engine Optimization or SEO).  The first three or four are actually paid ads to be in those top positions.  The next several to follow are in that order because the web designers for each site know the SEO tricks of the trade.  So other people are already playing a role in what the results of your query are going to be – other people that very likely view the world through the wrong end of the telescope!

But what about conservative fact-check websites?  Won’t they show up in my search results?  Maybe today, and maybe on page 3…but maybe not tomorrow, even on page 47!

The Internet has become flooded with “fact-check” sites and almost all are liberal – you can tell by reading their results.

Here’s the real scary part: We’ve already seen the early drum beats of the Left (and their fellow travelers in the media) spinning the narrative about “fake news” and “fake news sites.”  This is no accident.  It’s the beginning of giving total license to the Zuckerbergs of the world (owner of Facebook) and other popular platforms – – Twitter, Snap Chat, Instagram, etc. to sensor information if it doesn’t comport with their liberal agenda/narrative (something the mainstream media has been doing for decades)….and it won’t stop there. There could be many Internet Service Providers that jump on the bandwagon (Verizon, Comcast, AT&T, etc.) that start employing similar censorship on the data bits that flow in and out of your computer!  All in the name of fighting “fake news” or “hate speech.”  That means even your email!

And when the liberals gain power again (and they will) they will codify all this with laws and regulations.  Their ultimate goal is to make conservativism a criminal offense.  Hey, why shouldn’t they?  – – because to them you’re a dangerous bigot, homophobic, xenophobic, deplorable redneck if you think that way and, by George, it’s only the right thing to do to get rid of that kind of thought!  And that’s 1984 – just a few decades later!

Michigan: Where the rubber “trumps” the road

My younger brother Greg, his wife Carla and my baseball all-star nephew, Jackson, arrived in the Detroit area on Sunday to begin Team Iowa’s quest for the Junior League World Series title. My wife Betsy and I, along with another nephew Ari, trekked to the suburb of Taylor which sports one of the finest public baseball fields I have ever seen. And you thought Iowa had the “field of dreams.”

Upon exchanging hugs prior to game time, my brother looked at me and said, “God, the roads are terrible here.” What he didn’t know was that one of the major freeways in the Detroit area had ground to a halt due to a ginormous pot hole that had blown out more than two dozen tires earlier in the day. The pot hole was so egregious you could actually see through the road. You may have heard of the advertising slogan “Pure Michigan.” Well, the sorry nature of the roads and bridges in one of this country’s most beautiful states can only be summed up as “Putrid Michigan.”

Who’s to blame for this growing disaster? Start with the government morons who sign the contracts to rebuild the roads. Michigan for decades has given the road work to the “low-cost” bidder. As they say, you get what you pay for, and Michigan taxpayers have been paying for roads that crumble within a few years of their creation or re-creation. While we lived for a little more than a decade adjacent to one of the busiest roads in metro Detroit, Telegraph Road, it was completely redone three times.

Sure, sure, sure, Michigan roads take a pounding from the big trucks supplying the auto industry, are subject to vast swings in weather – from hot to extreme cold – and receive boatloads of road salt in the winter. Regardless, Michigan roads quickly disintegrate as if they are made of papier mache. By the way, shame on the road construction companies; you folks know what crap you are putting down.

Villain number two is a combo of the Michigan legislature – both parties – and Governor Snyder. Let’s work backwards. Governor Snyder swept into office as the self-proclaimed “one tough nerd.” He would be the “anti-politics” politician. But, so far he has failed deliver his “no nonsense” approach when it comes to kicking the legislature’s a— in order to get them to find a funding bill to get the roads fixed.

Which brings us to the Republican and Democratic fools in the Michigan legislature. Each day these clowns delay in finding the revenue to pay for new roads, the bill keeps climbing higher and higher. What’s on the legislature’s mind: two hypocritical freshman Tea Party legislators, both married to other people, who apparently have been doing the “wild thing” and then concocted a bizarre scheme to hide their extracurricular activities. It is apparent that this is “where the rubber trumps the road.”
Hopefully this disaster will be remedied. I hope the next time my brother visits Michigan it is finally smooth sailing. And, the holier-than-thou hypocrites doing the horizontal bop no longer represent their constituents in Lansing.

p.s. Team Iowa smoked Team Virginia 9-4 and plays Team New Jersey tonight. I wonder if Chris Christie will be there. I think I might ask Governor Snyder to close a bridge as a practical joke.