Fake News

CNN lies about Netflix ‘cutting ties’ with Kevin Spacey

CNN is reporting that Netflix cut ties with Kevin Spacey, Oscar award-winning actor and sexual predator of teenage boys. Just because CNN says something, doesn’t mean it’s true.

For example, I went to my Netflix account and did a search for Kevin Spacey. Lots of results appeared. Here are the top three results:

A quick search of Netflix shows they still have lots of his movies and TV shows available for streaming.

If Netflix truly cut ties with Kevin Spacey, it would mean they were not making money from his work or paying him for his work. Having his movies and TV shows in their library provides content for Netflix subscribers. People pay to subscribe to Netflix.

Netflix still has economic ties with Kevin Spacey

If I decide to watch House of Cards on Netflix, Kevin Spacey makes money. Netflix pays him a residual for viewership of his work. Not only as an actor but as a producer as well.

If you’re still writing checks to someone, you can’t claim you’ve “cut ties” with them.

Why is CNN claiming Netflix cut ties with Kevin Spacey when a 10-second search on Netflix proves it’s not true? Because they’re lazy and they don’t seem to have a problem with reporting things that are not true. CNN probably received a press release from Netflix that said they cut ties with Kevin Spacey and the reporter assigned to the story, Sandra Gonzalez, treated it as gospel.

At best it’s lazy reporting on the part of Sandra Gonzalez and a lack of editorial overwatch. At worst, it’s fake news, a willful misreporting of the facts. Knowing CNN, it’s probably a little bit of both.

The Baltimore Sun wants to protect me from ‘fake’ news?

I got an email from The Baltimore Sun with a special offer. The title of the email was, “2017 resolution: No more fake news! Only read trusted stories, $1.25 a week for a year.” In the body of the email was the following image:

We believe tall tales belong in libraries? Don’t they know that lots of people read The Baltimore Sun in libraries? When I was a kid, I liked going to the library to read newspapers and magazines. It was long before libraries became official unofficial daytime homeless shelters that they are today. At least the public library in Hagerstown is. I liked reading the newspapers at the library because they put them on long wooden poles. It made for a better, neater reading experience.

What I find hilarious with something like this is that the biggest propagator of “fake news” is the online version of traditional mainstream news media. For example, the following appears on the front page of The Baltimore Sun website:

Really? What Angie Harmon looks like now is “insane”? What exactly does a person have to look like to be characterized as insane? Is she strapped to a special dolly wearing a no-bite facemask like Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs? That’s what it looks like to me when someone looks insane.

The Baltimore Sun wants to protect me from 'fake' news? - Bent Corner — Angie Harmon is that you?

Unless Angie Harmon now looks Hopkins in the above photo, the paid post on the front page of The Baltimore Sun website is highly misleading. I would even say that the paid post is fake. It’s not even an ad for Your Daily Dish. Not really. It’s a post like other posts on The Baltimore Sun, but what sets it apart from the others is that it’s a paid post.

Even a Jimmy Buffett fan can tell you that the Angie Harmon post is an ad, but The Baltimore Sun is pretending that it’s not an ad, they’re pretending that it’s a post.

Is Angie Harmon even financially compensated for having her image used in a paid advertisement? If it were an actual pure ad, she would need to agree to have her likeness used and whoever placed the ad would need to compensate her financially. If her photo appears in a post, she wouldn’t need to sign off on her likeness used, nor would the newspaper need to compensate her.

It’s stuff like this that gives me zero faith in the mainstream news media.

Carrie Fisher 1956 – 2016

From the Los Angeles Times:

Actress and writer Carrie Fisher, who rose to global fame as the trail-blazing intergalactic heroine Princess Leia in the “Star Wars” franchise and later went on to establish herself as an author and screenwriter with an acerbic comic flair, has died.

Fisher suffered a cardiac incident on Friday during a flight to Los Angeles from London, where she had been filming the third season of the Amazon comedy series “Catastrophe.” Upon landing, she was quickly rushed to UCLA Medical Center, but after three days in intensive care, she died, a family publicist confirmed. She was 60 years old.

From the moment she first stepped onto the screen in 1977’s “Star Wars,” the character of Leia Organa — whip-smart, wryly funny and fearless enough to stand up to the likes of Darth Vader without batting an eye, with an instantly iconic set of buns on either side of her head — inspired generations of young girls to be bold and inspired crushes in generations of young boys.

When I first read this on Facebook, I was hoping it was fake news. It wasn’t fake news. Unfortunely, it really happened.