It is always easy to knock the 'left' or the 'right' (ie those people who don't think the way you do). But if Trump had got the popular vote and Clinton the electoral college numbers, we'd be having the same debate just in reverse, and probably with even wilder accusations being bandied around from Trump.

As for fake news, there are two kinds:
1. Gossip, errors, carelessness, jumping to conclusions, false assumptions, wishful thinking etc all working on the Chinese whispers process, aggravated these days by the speed of the media and the lack of time or interest in fact-checking.
2. Deliberate falsehoods, deceptively twisted versions of facts, or innuendo repeated till it becomes assumed to be fact (the old fashioned term is propaganda) are mainly intended to damage opponents, especially their credibility, and are used by all sides. Because of (1) these falsehoods are hugely more effective than in the past.

There is just one way to handle this: constant across the board scepticism. Ok so you are already sceptical of anything about people or politics that you don't like or agree with. But it's important to be equally - or even more - sceptical of things that on face value appear to support what you already think. After all, shouldn't your deep beliefs and values be based on solid ground? What value are they if they are manipulated?

Cossomby nicely said.

R0bert

Shadow, you have out done yourself. "News limited fact checks every story before it is published," Did they drug your 'Coco Pops' in the morning for you to say that. The Daily Telegcrap and other member publications of the Nonews stable with their regular load of sensational hogwash for the consumption of the knuckle dragging supporter. Speaking to the occasional half intelligent conservative, they will admit they are embarrassed at times by the steady stream of biased claptrap masquerading as news which comes from the Murdoch press.
Is that why the links your provide on the forum come almost exclusively from such rubbish publications.

Dear Paul,

Media ownership in Australia is notoriously narrow.
Mainstream media offers precious little diversity
and such as there is runs along predictable lines.
However it is the internet that offers a vast
supply of news - especially opinion.

Fairfax's and Murdoch's print regimes are under great
pressure. Australians are great consumers of
online journalism. Alan Austin tells us in an article
on the web that the top 500 websites in Australia in
terms of web traffic include about 100 news outlets
and that more than 30 of Australia's top 100
online news outlets are from outside Australia -
including US, Britain, China, Russia, Indonesia, New
Zealand and India. The US, in contrast has only 60
in its top 500 internet sites. We are able to be
well informed but we need places where national and
diverse views can be found on important issues.
Places like - New Matilda, Independent Australia,
The Guardian Australia, The Conversation, The Drum,
On Line Opinion, Q and A, and others.

Julian Burnside, QC, once stated that:

"It would be difficult to agree with every view expressed
in the columns of New Matilda, but it would be
difficult to disagree with them all. And it would be
impossible to criticise any of them as irrational or
foolish."

So it's true that Hillary was "demon possessed" and has personally murdered, chopped up and raped children and that Donald Trump is also The Messiah (or his forerunner) too?

That Kenyan phoney Barack Obama is secretly gay and his wife Michelle is really a transgender man? (We all know they murdered Joan Rivers in hospital when she spilled the beans but made it look like natural causes!).

As well as PizzaGate, that's just a tiny sample of what the Right Wing media has widely been broadcasting without restraint.

PizzaGate led a man to drive across the country with an assault rifle and shoot up that store. How many others are preparing to do the same sort of thing, based on similar deliberate lies? It's not a political point-scoring game - it's life and death to many.

I suggest Shadow Minister have a look at Right Wing Watch to see what and how his compatriots think. Trump publicly went along with a lot of these notions during the campaign and won't be allowed to completely distance himself from those supporters.

Some Leftists may have some strange ideas but a lot of the American Right is certifiably and barking mad.

Paul,

I realise that from the sheer flatulence of your post how much that you and the rest of the knuckle dragging greens hate newscorp. I guess your impotent rage is partially at their viewpoints, but more so at your inability to challenge what they write.

Foxy,

As the topic is about false news, with respect to the deliberate publishing of false information.

With this in mind it is not possible to point the finger at any major news organisation (without lying) such as Newscorp, Fairfax or the Guardian as deliberately publishing falsehoods, given their need to maintain their reputations, and the oversight of the the Australian Press Council that enforces apologies and retractions if any of them get it wrong.

However, those you claim to be "independent" such as the New Matilda and IA (though Newscorp, fairfax and the guardian can also claim to be independent) being only blogs are free from the oversight of the the Australian Press Council and its onerous requirements for fact checking.

While most of their material is devoid of any news and consists primarily of Left whinge polemics, occasionally some of these "authors" will deviate from their emotive whining and try and produce some analysis and stupidly quote ALP statements or opinions as facts when often they are at best fanciful.

Rache,

For every false news story published by Trump supporters there were dozens by self appointed guardians of the left. These were devoured and repeated ad nauseam by these left whingers until they began to believe it.

The problem is that when the music stopped and these denizens of these pre truth safe places realized that they had been soundly whipped by those they had called deplorables, instead of doing the unimaginable and opening their eyes, descended into weeping and wailing and blaming everything but themselves for their cock up.