Two articles from usatodaysnews.com have been making the rounds.
This one:
No they didn’t.
And this one:
He didn’t and he wasn’t.
usatodaysnews.com attempts to circumvent casual fact-checking by removing the site’s “right-click” functionality. There is no copying the text and pasting into search engines to find other sources with the exact same article.
This also means you can’t right-click on an image to search Google for the image’s origins. These are all Catfish-style tips for finding the validity of an article — and it represents a very deliberate attempt on the part of the site’s creators to make it harder for a visitor to try and determine if a story is real or not.
Looking at the bogus impeachment article, however, you can find other fake-news outlets that have posted this same article, right down to the concluding “burn”:
“We look forward to watching him burn the liberals again!”
Other fake-news sources for the impeachment article include: The Last Line of Defense, Independent Reports, and American Today.
The Last Lie — er, sorry, I mean, Last Line — of Defense is also the origin of the Trump-Colbert article. The disclaimer for the Last Line of Defense states pretty clearly that:
. . . if you believe this crap you’re a real dumbass.
Lovely attitude to have.
We’ve discussed the scheistiness of The Last Li[n]e of Defense here. But what does Last Line‘s Disclaimer tell us about usatodaysnews.com’s culpability in spreading fake news?
Aside from trying to get instant credibility by playing off of a familiar mass media news outlet, the Disclaimer for USAToday News tries to absolve itself from passing on fake news as real news with this line:
Sorry, that’s not how journalism works, son.
Basically, “we can’t be held responsible for the correctness of the stuff we try to pass off as credible news.”
Because that’s exactly how journalism should work. [/sarcasm]
Fake News.
