[hubert123]

"we kind of laughed at it"

The lazy traditional mass media thinks it can just ignore any nefarious angle or pretend that it doesn't exist and that it cannot exist. The best example is the Sandy Hook conspiracy. I have no stake in this game, but I'm as interested as anybody to hear both sides and it turns out that CNN will not ever provide the other side of the story while infowars will. It's that easy: Infowars does its actual journalistic job and questions everything. That's what CNN is supposed to be doing. That's what the are all supposed to be doing as journalists, you should be JUMPING at the option of Sandy Hook being a false flag. If it isnt, that's even better. But I want to hear all angles about it. There is no value in being blindly trusting of the government. I'm not an american but I'm pretty sure that one core value is to distrust the government, to be ready for it to turn evil. I listen to Alex Jones for many hours every week and he is definitely hyperbolic (which can be funny and this is often the goal -partly) and he sometimes gets things wrong too. But he provides much more value than reading the equivalent of a machine generated press release on CNN.com.

[nkurz]

I got a similar sense of unease from the linked interview, but then found the paper itself to be surprisingly solid: http://faculty.washington.edu/kstarbi/Alt_Narratives_ICWSM17....

Based on a quick read, it seems to have a solid methodology, clearly defines its terms, and is refreshingly upfront about possible shortcomings. I particularly liked this disclaimer: "It is important to note that the first author is a left-leaning individual who receives her news primarily through mainstream sources and who considers the alternative narratives regarding these mass shooting events to be false. This may have affected how the content on these domains was perceived and classified."

So while your criticism is appropriate for most of the "fake news" coverage I've seen, I think this paper gets beyond that to some points you'd probably agree with. Personally, I liked that it didn't try to force the findings onto a linear Left-Right scale, and instead noted the need for a distinct "International Anti-Globalist" cluster as well.

[mattmanser]

Should mainstream media check after every shooting if Elvis had been spotted leaving the scene because he never died and was cryogenically frozen for use by the NSA as a super assassin to further their role in subverting the NRA?

No, only an idiot believes nonsense like that, like only an idiot thinks crisis actors are used to stage mass shootings.

Somethings aren't worth investigating. And as the article points out, actually investigating them often backfires into giving them an sheen of legitimacy.

[nl]

The best example is the Sandy Hook conspiracy. I have no stake in this game, but I'm as interested as anybody to hear both sides and it turns out that CNN will not ever provide the other side of the story while infowars will. It's that easy: Infowars does its actual journalistic job and questions everything.

Some stories just don't have two sides.

Infowars doesn't do a "journalistic job". What they do is take a story, work out what their world view says ("Guns make people safer and the government is bad" in this case I think?) and then finds some theory - any theory - to back their view and calls it the other side of the story.

[tomjen3]

As a minimum, you can look into why people believe things you consider false. Then you can investigate those.

Or you could just ignore them, then they will ignore you and probably our society will be worse off.

[nl]

Sure. I understand completely why people believe in theories like this. The paper linked from the article has a good explanation.

I don't know a useful way to talk about though. Evidence doesn't seem the best approach because there is always some theory why their evidence is better.

[phaed]

Reporting is about facts. Reporters should question, based on factual evidence. Conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones start with the conclusion and then try to find ways to bend news stories into it, ignoring things that don't fit.

[hubert123]

Alex Jones is basically a journalist that mostly does opinion pieces. There is nothing wrong with that. If I were you, I would use the word "fact" a little less confidently, facts are only facts until disproven and they are always tied to other facts which can in turn be disproven.

[exodust]

And all this time I thought facts were carefully verified and reviewed. Cross-checked against detailed research and evaluation; and then respected as truth.

Sounds like you're attempting to discredit 'facts'. This is exactly what conspiracy theorists do. Anything that gets in the way of their fantasy perspectives, even facts themselves, are cast aside with a broad sweep of the Truther's brush. Replaced with a new spicy version of reality.

The thing I hate most about Truthers, is their disrespect towards victims and grieving communities, which include emergency personnel.

Claims that everyone involved is a crisis actor, is no different than looking up at clouds and seeing faces in the clouds, and then believing those faces to be actual real faces rather than clouds formed in the shape of a face. It takes a certain kind of stupid to believe that.

Is there an awards night for Crisis actors? "Best Crisis Actor" and so on? There must be. Secret underground event naturally.

[empath75]

Don't let your mind be so open that it falls out.