Fake News

Seriously. He said this. Via Reuters: Media that focus on scandals and spread fake news to smear politicians risk becoming like people who have a morbid fascination with excrement, Pope Francis said in an interview published on Wednesday. Francis told the Belgian Catholic weekly “Tertio” that spreading disinformation was “probably the greatest damage that the media can do” and using …

From the Associated Press: A trending story that claims Hillary Clinton won a total of 57 counties in the presidential election is untrue. The Associated Press finds that Clinton won 487 counties nationwide, compared with 2,626 for President-elect Donald Trump. The story appeared on several viral content sites that cater to some of Trump’s supporters. It also falsely claimed that …

The New York Times reports: Vice President-elect Mike Pence, appearing on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program, insisted on Tuesday that the son of retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, who posted a baseless conspiracy theory on Twitter on Sunday night, has “no involvement in the transition whatsoever.” Yet the son, Mike Flynn Jr., has sat in on some transition meetings and …

As I noted in the comments of this morning’s story about the DC pizza shop shooting, YouTube is already ablaze with conspiracy nuts who claim that the gunman was planted by the mainstream media and/or government in order to further the imaginary crackdown on right wing sites like Breitbart. And now this: The son of retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, …