From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 27 Nov 2016 15:51:50 -0500

I really am confused by this. I am no expert, or even close follower,
of media studies (outside of the business side, which is an entirely
different world), but I have not found the gaps in the media to be
nearly as great as many people I know, including some of my closest
friends. During the primary season I kept hearing that mainstream
media were biased toward Hillary, but I kept reading in the NY Times
(not to mention the Wall St. Journal) about one Hillary atrocity after
another. As for Standing Rock, my In box is so full of information
about it that I have been thinking about setting up a filter to block
it. And my news sources are not particularly eclectic and, with the
possible exception of following a number of publications on Twitter,
probably within the median point of liblicense subscribers: NY Times,
WSJ, New Yorker, NY Review of Books. From Twitter I pick up the
Guardian and the Economist. No fringe media here, unless liblicense is
counted as fringe.

Perhaps I would feel differently if I watched TV for anything but
movies and baseball. When I am stuck in a hotel room and surf the
cable news outlets, I am astonished by how empty they are. But the
other media I follow, which surely must be considered mainstream, seem
to me to be doing a better job than they get credit for.

Joe Esposito


On Fri, Nov 25, 2016 at 7:21 PM, Karin Wikoff <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> The whole "fake news" narrative is one I have been watching and which I find most concerning, though perhaps not for the reasons you might ex[ect.
>
> As this election season unfolded, I became more and more aware of how skewed the reporting of the mainstream media is.  Not just a little bias, which we all know exists, but actively steering public perceptions in a very partisan way.  I started finding alternative sources for news.  It's rather a pain, because one has to really check out the sources -- one can no longer rely on the formerly reliable news sources to be accurate.  But when you wander off the beaten path, it's the Wild West.  There are unquestionably all kinds of fake news sites -- but there are also alternative news sources that are considerably better than mainstream media: Democracy Now and The Young Turks are two examples. I keep thinking how utterly ironic it is that we live in the information age, but have a harder time ascertaining the accuracy of news reports than in the era of Walter Cronkite.
>
> Yes, there are fake news sites, and they were very, very active regarding the Presidential election, but the way the media is pushing the narrative, I feel like it is a way to muddy the waters to discredit the actual reliability of some alternative sources for news which are more accurate than the mainstream media.
>
> I am thinking of Standing Rock, as just one example -- one I have been following since August and which has been going on since April.  I've seen dozens of live streams, many from people I know personally who went to the site, plus the alternative networks.  I have seen human rights abuses on the part of law enforcement to equal Selma and Birmingham in 1963.  And I have listened to the deafening silence of our major news sources, some of which have tossed in a brief bit the past few days since a young woman had part of her arm blown off this past Sunday (and another young woman, a Native American, had her retina detached) -- both due to police actions against unarmed water protectors.  What's going on out there right now is one of the biggest stories of this generation, but one must turn to alternative media to learn anything about it.
>
> As librarians and information professionals, it falls to us to help patrons find the real news, to sort the reliable alternative sources from the fake news sites, but without being sucked into a manufactured narrative that paints all non-mainstream sources with the same muddy brush.
>
>
> Karin
>
>
> Karin Wikoff
> Electronic and Technical Services Librarian
> Ithaca College Library
> 953 Danby Rd
> Ithaca, NY 14850
>
> Phone: 1-607-274-1364
> Fax: 1-607-274-1539
> Email: [log in to unmask]
>
> ________________________________
> From: Bernie Reilly <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2016 18:51:02 +0000
>
> Some brief thoughts on what the post-election “fake news” debate has
> to do with research libraries, at:
>
> https://www.crl.edu/blogs/fake-news.
>
> With a responsibility to ensure future citizens an accurate and
> complete public record, research libraries have a stake in the
> survival of “fact-based” reporting and independent journalism.
> Licensing, and using the power of the library purse, could afford us
> some leverage.  CRL's electronic resources strategy is designed to
> confront the challenges.
>
> Best to all for the Thanksgiving Holiday.
>
> Bernard F. Reilly
> www.CRL.edu
> CRL - Center for Research Libraries. Enriching Research ...
> www.crl.edu
> CRL is a community of libraries committed to the preservation and integrity of primary documentation and evidence.