Their fixation on obfuscation and mislabeling of fake news is done for several reasons -to discredit real news that reflects poorly on Trump, to distract from Trump and Flynn consuming and spewing fake news themselves, and to poo-poo its possible influence on the election. Whell has taken it upon himself to pursue this same strategy on these pages. His objective is clear, but nobody's buying it.

This latest fake news projection and misdirection campaign comes on the heels of a decade's long effort by the GOP to discredit mainstream news sources in favor of conservative "news" sources (Fox News, talk radio, Breitbart, InfoWars ...) that can be depended upon to reliably carry their water. The nation's attention to "fake news" revelations threatens to harm the credibility of conservative media (and Trump) and they (and their minions/pawns/stooges like Whell) are striking out to ensure that conservatives continue to trust the stuff coming from these sources. What good is propaganda if people stop believing it?

Interesting that you should ask that question. That's the exact question that has been haunting the traditional news sources, and their credibility is now worse than it has been in years. When the traditional news sources act as if they've become a propaganda arm for the Democrat party, it should be no wonder that they take a major credibility hit. ...and you just keep lapping up the tripe that they publish.

You want to discount this point of view. Fine, don't take it from me. Take it from one of the media's own:

If you’re a working journalist and you believe that Donald J. Trump is a demagogue playing to the nation’s worst racist and nationalistic tendencies, that he cozies up to anti-American dictators and that he would be dangerous with control of the United States nuclear codes, how the heck are you supposed to cover him?

Because if you believe all of those things, you have to throw out the textbook American journalism has been using for the better part of the past half-century, if not longer, and approach it in a way you’ve never approached anything in your career. If you view a Trump presidency as something that’s potentially dangerous, then your reporting is going to reflect that. You would move closer than you’ve ever been to being oppositional. That’s uncomfortable and uncharted territory for every mainstream, nonopinion journalist I’ve ever known, and by normal standards, untenable.

So, the media decided not to check their biases at the door. They allowed their biases to influence their reporting because there was some sort of "consensus" among journalists that Trump was somehow dangerous, and it would therefore be disingenuous to their readers to leave their biases out of the reporting. As the writer of the article notes:

It may not always seem fair to Mr. Trump or his supporters. But journalism shouldn’t measure itself against any one campaign’s definition of fairness. It is journalism’s job to be true to the readers and viewers, and true to the facts, in a way that will stand up to history’s judgment. To do anything less would be untenable.

Well, when the facts come colored with the reporter's bias, because the reporter has convinced him/herself that their bias is fact, news reporting is no longer news reporting. It's fake news.

You might reply that we should fear Trump. As the article points out:

“If you have a nominee who expresses warmth toward one of our most mischievous and menacing adversaries, a nominee who shatters all the norms about how our leaders treat families whose sons died for our country, a nominee proposing to rethink the alliances that have guided our foreign policy for 60 years, that demands coverage — copious coverage and aggressive coverage,” said Carolyn Ryan, The New York Times’s senior editor for politics. “It doesn’t mean that we won’t vigorously pursue reporting lines on Hillary Clinton — we are and we will.”

Well, there's no responsible person who would look at that comment and call "bullshit" on it. I certainly don't recall the media hyper-ventilating, or providing "copious and aggressive coverage" - to nearly the same degree about Obama's familiarity with the Russians, even when he was caught on tape. Certainly no one felt that this familiarity should result in questions about Obama's fitness as president.

And was it familiarity with the Russians that caused the administration to delay reacting to the hacking in the first place? Maybe they didn't want to upset Putin to keep him engaged on Syria? They didn't want to make Vlad mad? Don't see any "copious and aggressive coverage" on Obama's failure to react appropriately to this. Only now, after Hillary has lost, is Obama choosing to make a public display of his dissatisfaction with the Russians...but the media has no problem with this.

And you keep bemoaning the "non-traditional media": Brietbart, etc. Who do you think allowed Breitbart to gain a foothold? Its no coincidence that as the credibility - and market share, and readership, and advertising revenue - of the traditional media has waned, other sources of news have flourished. You might not like their content, but the traditional media has only themselves to blame for giving these news sources market share.

And old legal aphorism states that 'hard cases make bad law.' It means that cases way outside the norm lead one to stretch or break the principles that serve well normally.

Apply to the case of journalism and Donald Trump.

Normally, when a candidate grossly insults a strong minority group, the newspapers would say "Look what Donald Trump just said about Mexicans," and that would be the end of Donald Trump.

That's not how it went this year. Repeat 40 times or so, and the journalists finally catch on that the 'normal' journalism is just feeding the beast. The journalists feel used, among other things. They become self-critical and cast about for the right thing to do in a very unusual situation.

One thing they do is provided fodder for you. That doesn't make the news false, and you have actually just put up yet another FAKE ARGUMENT.

Ah, yes - the young ape with a shovel. I hear you're planning another archeological expedition. Cornelius, a friendly word of warning - as you dig for artifacts, be sure you don't bury your reputation.

Speaking of fake arguments, thank you for reminding me of the Mexican comment fake news.

Here's the text of those comments that you're referring to:

Thank you. It's true, and these are the best and the finest. When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.

But I speak to border guards and they tell us what we're getting. And it only makes common sense. It only makes common sense. They're sending us not the right people.

It's coming from more than Mexico. It's coming from all over South and Latin America, and it's coming probably -- probably -- from the Middle East. But we don't know. Because we have no protection and we have no competence, we don't know what's happening. And it's got to stop and it's got to stop fast.

So, did Trump say anything that was factually incorrect? Particularly the most inflammatory allegations about "drugs, crime and rapists"?

Trump made these comments in 2015. At that time, 2014 data was available from ICE. ICE's Enforcement Report suggests that removal of such illegal aliens is a top priority. It also states that the top country of origin for removals was, and has been for years, Mexico. ICE's data also indicates that removal of individuals with criminal convictions was a top priority: "On November 20, 2014, Secretary Johnson issued a memorandum directing ICE to discontinue the Secure
Communities program and replace it with the Priority Enforcement Program (PEP) to more effectively identify and facilitate the removal of criminal aliens in the custody of state and local law enforcement agencies."

Data from the Congressional Research Service shows the population of US prisons - both citizens and non-citizens. It certainly shows that a significant number of non citizens are currently in federal prisons for drug crimes and violent crimes including rape and murder.

Then you have the anecdotal evidence. For instance:

Man who was deported 10 times since 2010 faces rape charge in Kansas

The sad story of Jamiel Shaw. Shaw's killer - Pedro Espinoza - was an illegal immigrant who had just been released from jail.

Then, of course, there were reports that 80% of the young women and girls crossing the border in the US were victims of rape. Rape can be perpetrated by anyone along the way, including guides, fellow migrants, bandits or government officials, according to Fusion. Sometimes sex is used as a form of payment, when women and girls don’t have money to pay bribes.

However, its also a crime that the traditional media misrepresetned Trump's quote and turned it into FAKE NEWS. Its the same fake news that you were obviously influenced by based on your comments above. Here's a great article - from a person who describes himself as a " liberal, Puerto Rican professor" and a Bernie Sanders supporter. It specifically sites examples of the FAKE NEWS created by the traditional media who misrepresented Trumps comments. From the article:

Compare such words with Trump’s words. Which is worse? Writers excerpted the phrase: “they’re rapists,” as if it were about all Mexican unauthorized immigrants, or worse, about all Mexican immigrants, or even worst, about all Mexicans. But that’s not what he said. That’s not what he meant. It was just a remark about some of the criminals crossing the border.

The trick for misrepresenting Trump’s words can be used against anyone.

And contrary to your assertions the other day that print journalists who disseminate false don't last long in their jobs, I'd wager that most if not all of the authors of the articles cited in the Salon piece quoted above are still employed.

Get back to me when you can start making sense.

Those Trump remarks were crap and six paragraphs of pretzel logoc (and doubling down) can't clean up the emotional smack Trump was delivering, to the lasting and severe harm to America. Trump normalized hate.

"They're sending...." It xenophobia deluxe, no matter what little disclaimers he was careful to squeeze in. Nothing was faked. Everybody got the real message.

Well, you can inject your own bias and make inferences about what Trump said, like you're doing above and apparently like the media did. If you want to do that, as someone who is not a member of the media, that's fine and dandy. If someone who purports to report news objectively writes a news story and injects their own biases with the objective of misrepresenting those comments, that's fake news.

Everything the NY Times inserted into their report about the Mexican rapists stuff in Trump's announcement speech. Anything fake in it?

Everything the Washington post inserted into their report about the Mexican rapists stuff in Trump's announcement speech. Anything fake in it?

Everything that ABCNews,com inserted into their report about the Mexican rapists stuff in Trump's announcement speech. Anything fake in it?

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/17/us...l-he-says.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.17c00c3810dd

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donal...ry?id=31799741

Look at the links in the Salon article.