This is an alarming 3-minute video about the extremist fringes that are polluting the media with lies and conspiracy theories. It is part of a series produced by The Atlantic. There have always been fringe talk show hosts and publications. The problem is that the president of the United States cites “facts” taken from these media. He thinks he won the popular vote because he learned that from the alt-right media. He probably thinks that the Sandy Hook massacre was an elaborate hoax. The elevation of crackpots and crackpot theories as equivalent to the mainstream media explains why we are bombarded with fake news. It explains why everyone must learn to read and think critically and to be able to distinguish fact from fallacy. It is not easy, but that is why education must be divorced from partisan politics.

Categories Fake News, Lies

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Ponderosa says:

March 15, 2017 at 3:22 pm

But this is the $64,000 question: is it possible to teach critical thinking? If so, how? It’s easy to teach a habit of skepticism. But I have neighbors who deploy this habit to be skeptical of claims that the Earth is a sphere. Clearly a habit of skepticism is not enough. I tend to think a strong general knowledge base is indispensable for making a competent critical thinker. It’s that knowledge base that enables one to smell the difference between plausible and implausible.

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- SomeDAM Poet says:
  
  March 15, 2017 at 4:45 pm
  
  I agree.
  
  True skepticism is informed doubt.
  
  The only way to be truly skeptical is to have some idea about how the world works and preferably, to also have some idea about how people have been fooled in the past to avoid making the same mistakes.
  
  Uninformed doubt is not skepticism but contrariness.
  
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- GregB says:
  
  March 15, 2017 at 4:51 pm
  
  To me the solution to the problem of teaching critical thinking in schools is not rocket science. But it is becoming more and more impossible to give teachers the autonomy and professional support needed to foster the teaching needed to do so.
  
  The problem as I see it, and I think we agree, is how to foster critical thinking among adults. The only constructive, effective way of which I am are is the idea of deliberative polling that has been espoused for decades by James Fishkin, now at Stanford. If consultants and media were focused on governing instead of horse-race politics and campaigning, then perhaps this idea would be more widely used. Here’s some background: http://cdd.stanford.edu/what-is-deliberative-polling/. Be sure to download the one pager for a quick overview.
  
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  - GregB says:
    
    March 15, 2017 at 4:54 pm
    
    of which I am aware
    
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- SomeDAM Poet says:
  
  March 16, 2017 at 8:41 am
  
  I am not very optimistic about fostering critical thinking in adults because in general, they have opinions hardened into stone.
  
  Teaching critical thinking has to happen much earlier, among the youth, and for that, I think the scientific method is a very good pattern to follow.
  
  The process of formulating a hypothesis and testing that hypothesis against all available evidence can be applied in pretty much any area: history, literature, civics, etc.
  
  This approach actually builds in the knowledge base requirement because, as any good scientist knows, you can’t hope to come up with a reasonable argument regarding a hypothesis if you don’t have the relevant knowledge. This approach also encourages creative thinking and looking at all the evidence, not just certain pieces.
  
  Though it may seem similar o it’s face, this is actually fundamentally different from the standard approach of writing down a thesis statement and then providing evidence in support of that thesis.
  
  The latter tends to cherry pick only those “facts” that support the thesis and ignore everything that does not fit, especially evidence that would contradict the thesis.
  
  Good science addresses all the evidence, especially evidence that contradicts the hypothesis.
  
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Zorba says:

March 15, 2017 at 3:52 pm

Reblogged this on BLOGGYWOCKY and commented:

The fact that there are so many people in this country who believe this stuff is indeed very, very alarming.
Sandy Hook was faked? Really? I’m sure that this BS hurts the still-grieving parents and families of those killed at Sandy Hook. What must they be feeling when they see this tripe?
Oh, and don’t forget the lunatic who went to the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in DC in December because he thought that he would “save” child sex slaves in a child-abuse ring led by Hillary Clinton.
And we have a President who apparently thinks that Breitbart and Infowars (and let’s not forget Fox News) are the be-all and end-all of “real” news, and everything else is “fake news.”
Oy! 😩

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- gailj2 says:
  
  March 15, 2017 at 4:34 pm
  
  Oy! is so true
  
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Dienne says:

March 15, 2017 at 4:08 pm

But what is “fringe” and why is “fringe” necessarily a bad thing? The Washington Post, certainly no fringe outfit, has published several articles lately that have had to be partially or fully retracted. One of those articles talked about a list of 200 websites that were allegedly controlled by the Russians. Most of those sites are probably “fringe”, but quite a few were and are considered to be very reliable (more reliable, in fact, than WaPo). PropOrNot ended up having to remove many of those sites from their list, but only after WaPo did the dirty deed of disseminating the list and smearing those sites.

The issue isn’t whether or not a news site is “fringe”. The major media have no patent on The Truth. The issue is whether or not they can back up their claims with documentation and evidence, which the “fringe” sites often do a better job of than the mainstream news.

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- dianeravitch says:
  
  March 15, 2017 at 6:55 pm
  
  Dienne,
  
  If you listen to Alex Jones, as Trump does, you will learn that the Sandy Hook Massacre was staged. No one died! It was a hoax perpetrated by Obama to take away our guns!
  
  Fringe? Who is to say? Maybe it really was staged. Think so?
  
  I don’t.
  
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  - GregB says:
    
    March 15, 2017 at 8:01 pm
    
    Not to mention that September 11th was U.S. government staged plot!
    
    Or that a single mother from Kansas smuggled her Kenyan-born biracial child into Hawaii in 1961 so that he would be elected president in 2008.
    
    Dangerously delusional, racist, xenophobic extremists=right wing fringe.
    
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  - Dienne says:
    
    March 15, 2017 at 8:19 pm
    
    So does Alex Jones back up his “reporting” with evidence and documentation? No? Then you’re not arguing my point. But plenty of sites that were on that list do back up their assertions with evidence and documentation. But, since they go against the prevailing “Russian hacked the election and is controlling Trump!!!” narrative, they were automatically painted as “fringe” sites controlled by the Russians. Until people understand that dissent does not equal “controlled by the Russians” and learn to look for and evaluate the evidence for themselves, it will be impossible to separate real news from fake news. WaPo and NYT are not necessarily “real news” any more than, say, CounterPunch just because they’re bigger and mainstream. Remember, NYT was largely responsible for bringing us the Iraq War.
    
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  - FLERP! says:
    
    March 16, 2017 at 8:45 am
    
    I wouldn’t consider CounterPunch “news” at all. To me it seems like it’s all analysis/commentary/opinion. Does CounterPunch actually break any news stories through original reporting?
    
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- SomeDAM Poet says:
  
  March 16, 2017 at 7:49 am
  
  In the scientific realm, sometimes the truth actually lies “on the fringe”. This situation happens from time to time and can lead to scientific revolutions, major shifts in the prevailing paradigm.
  
  The key (absolutely essential element) to determining truth is “evidence available to all.” The dedication to openness is actually what sets scientists apart from many journalists and news organizations, which often rely on anonymous sources who make claims that can not be verified.
  
  “Truth on the Fringe”
  
  The truth is not the mean
  Of right and left extreme
  It sometimes lies
  Outside the ties
  Of well-accepted meme
  
  PS please don’t take this as an endorsement of Alex Jones.😀
  
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gailj2 says:

March 15, 2017 at 4:32 pm

My life and that of my husband has been real media. We do and will speak out against fringe media. But some like my husband do visit fringe sites (that counts as a hit) just to see what weird is out there. He listens now and then to Russ Limbaugh. You do need to know the enemy. But we teachers must define what is reliable media. What ethics guide real media. Mistakes can happen. The good media corrects such. People who find untruth on real media need to speak up. In fact speaking up about so much has never been more important.

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John Ogozalek says:

March 15, 2017 at 4:55 pm

Very, very scary.

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Laura H. Chapman says:

March 15, 2017 at 5:20 pm

“It explains why everyone must learn to read and think critically and to be able to distinguish fact from fallacy. It is not easy, but that is why education must be divorced from partisan politics.”

I doubt that education can be divorced from partisan politics because all of the adult participants in education views about the proper purposes and outcomes of education, and so many students are immersed in various appeals to think this or that, believe this or that. At worst, you end up with teaching stripped of context as in David Coleman idea of “close reading” just figure the meaning from what you read, just the text, nothing but the words on the page.

I think that is a dangerously simplistic idea, and dangerous as a teaching method in an era where the distinction between fact and fiction, outright fallacies and plausible explanations are deliberately obliterated, the surreal is put forth as if real. All are major strategies for creating political chaos.

I also think that teachers need to help students understand partisan politics. There are many ways to do that. Dewey had some ideas about teaching small scale democracy within the school, every grade. The bid idea is that there is a difference between the authoritative and the authoritarian, whether we are considering individuals or institutions.

I certainly agree that teachers should not be indoctrinating students to follow the teacher’s political ideology. But a total divorce of education from the purposes, aims, consequences of partisan politics is not possible, especially if you are teaching history, geography, civics, science, the arts created and honored under various political regimes, or the practical uses of algorithms–perhaps with lessons from Cathy O’Neal aka mathbabe.

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Steve K says:

March 15, 2017 at 6:36 pm

Slate runs a daily column titled “Today in Conservative News.” I highly recommend this as a read if you want to see how they frame the same facts as established news sources in a totally different way.

(I’m not advocating them as quality journalism. It’s a good way to understand why conservatives have their views. It helps when disarming their “points.”)

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Akademos says:

March 15, 2017 at 7:15 pm

Trump’s travel ban has been blocked nationwide, again.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/03/15/us/politics/trump-travel-ban.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&referer=https://www.google.com/

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