By your logic every news outlet that covered what George W. Bush claimed, what Dick Cheney claimed, what Colin Powell claimed, what Condoleezza Rice claimed, what Donald Rumsfeld claimed, and what others in the government, military, and intelligence claimed about weapons of mass destruction are complicit as purveyors of Fake News. — Fooloso4

Yes, thanks for mentioning it. That's exactly what fake news is. When the establishment lies the country into war. Cheney, Powell, Condi, Rummy, Doug Feith, and Paul Wolfowitz should be in prison along with Bush. That's Obama's greatest failing. Instead of holding the Bush regime accountable for the war and for turning the US into a torture regime, he institutionalized those things. So that we're STILL at war, several of them, and the torture camps are still open. You just don't hear about them because we've all become numb to it.

That is exactly what fake news is. Fake news is not when some little alt-right or alt-left website prints something that questions the establishment narrative. That definition of fake news is itself fake news.

Fake news is when the establishment lies the country into war. Fake news is the Reichstag fire, the Gulf of Tonkin, the WMDs. Fake news is Assad "gassing his own people," which he never did. Fake news is last week's Iranian shootdown of a US surveillance drone that was most likely in Iranian airspace. The Japanese government doesn't believe the US's story. Neither do I.

So yeah thanks for bringing this up and helping me to bring focus to my thoughts.

Fake news is when the establishment sells big lies to the public. It's NOT when little alt-websites question the establishment. Fake news is the Big Lie that the government sells to the people. That's the point, which in retrospect I should have just said right up front several posts ago. Fake news is how the powers that be keep everyone frightened and compliant. That's what fake news is.

The problem with your example that you make the judgment "in the fullness of time". — Number2018

A million people marched against the Iraq war. I didn't believe the bullshit about the WMDs. And if Saddam had WMDs it's because we sold them to him when he was our ally during the 1980's Iraq-Iran war. I knew that at the time and so did millions of others.

I'm disappointed there are so many apologists for the Iraq war in this thread. I was not fooled at the time nor were millions of other Americans. Americans were angry about 9/11 which Saddam had NOTHING to do with. Bush's neocons used that anger and fear as an excuse to invade countries that they had already been planning to invade. That was perfectly well known at the time.

Do you know the PNAC document? The Project for a New American Century? The perpetrators of the attack on Iraq knew exactly what they wanted to do -- to depose the governments of Iraq, Iran, Syria, and several other Middle Eastern countries.

I am sorry, I am not buying the level of naivety I'm seeing here. The Iraq war was a lie and it was perfectly clear at the time. If any Middle Eastern country was up to its eyeballs in 9/11 it was our "good friend" Saudi Arabia. You know that, right?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century

Am I telling people things they've never heard before? You know what? If you don't know that Cneney and Wolfie and Feith and the rest of the neocons were already planning multiple invasions of multiple Middle East countries BEFORE 9/11, and used Americans' fear and anger to whip up war fervor, then YOU are the victim of fake news. That's EXACTLY what fake news is.

You think the invasion of Iraq was an honest policy decision? Even at the time? That's fake news.

The NYT is considered liberal. — Coben

Ah. Good point. They are liberal on social issues. On matters of war, they take the establishment line. That's the whole point. The NYT helped Bush lie the country into war. Sure they're social liberals. Their support for the Iraq war and their suppressing the story about Bush's illegal domestic surveillance until after the 2004 election gives the lie to the claim that they are any kind of peacemongers.

And today? They are leading the charge toward a war with Russia. The NYT is not for peace. Nor are most liberals anymore. It's been a long time since Vietnam.

What's left of the anti-war movement, anyway? Me and Tulsi, that's about it.

In any case, unlike genuine fake news (!), the NYT at least publishes corrections, listens to criticism, and tries to correct the record. — Wayfarer

Little late for that. Thanks for your thoughtful comments. I was against the Iraq war at the time and clearly that's colored my take on current events ever since. Once Hillary gave cover to the Dems to support the war, my connection with modern liberalism started to slip. Obama's continuation of the wars and his institutionalization of the torture finished me off.

Which, by the way, is how we got Trump. He called out Jeb! on W's war. Hillary was the opponent. Sure the deplorables are HALF of Trump's supporters, as Hillary correctly noted. Who are the other half? Those who remember that Hillary Clinton could have stopped the war with a word, and chose not to. That, and the lying New York Times. Look at the trillions wasted since then. Look at our foreign policy.

Fake news is lying the country into war. Everything else is just someone's little website. When the NYT lies they cause real damage.

By your logic every news outlet that covered what George W. Bush claimed, what Dick Cheney claimed, what Colin Powell claimed, what Condoleezza Rice claimed, what Donald Rumsfeld claimed, and what others in the government, military, and intelligence claimed about weapons of mass destruction are complicit as purveyors of Fake News. — Fooloso4

That complicity is complicated. It is not that everyone was rubbing their hands together like villains in a silent film while they played their parts in getting those articles to the public. They were given information by the government that they had a hard time disbelieving enough of it

in their positions.

There was fear affecting what the could openly question.
There was fear affecting what they could notice.

The rage that could be aimed at the newslets and the individuals working there would be enormous if they appeared not patriotic in the time following 9/11. That causes people to do all sorts of things, many of which they don't even want to notice themselves. No one likes to notice that one is acting out of fear when one is also supposedly being professional. And this involves setting aside critical thinking one would apply in other situations.

The small group that knows what their propaganda really is is conscious. They use or create a situation and a framing of the situation that puts incredible pressure on other people to be unconciously complicit. Then I think they had as a back up that, well, Sadaam is bad anyway so even if it is partially or fully bullshit, we are not doing a horrible thing. And so when Bush shifted to 'we are there to liberate and help the Iraqi people' the media made that shift without much blinking.

Conspiracies often do not need conscious for fully conscious complicity. They just need to put people in uncomfortable situations - there was also economic pressure indirectly - and paradigmatic pressure - 'they wouldn't really lie this horribly' - in the other parties. They bear responsibility. They are complicit, but for not being thorough, for not listening to inner voices that would have smelled something hinky, for not allowing themselves to deal with their fear and notice how it was controlling them.

But not in a backslapping, heh, heh, backroom complicity way.

In any case, unlike genuine fake news (!), the NYT at least publishes corrections, listens to criticism, and tries to correct the record. — Wayfarer

This a category slip here. Fake news is the articles and reports. The NYT is a newspaper. If it later, after the primary goals of the fake news have taken effect, makes corrections, they still published fake news earlier. A very short gap between error and correction - one which precludes the consquences of the fake news - that's might let us skip the label fake news. That's a mistake. But years....

Ah. Good point. They are liberal on social issues. On matters of war, they take the establishment line. That's the whole point. The NYT helped Bush lie the country into war. Sure they're social liberals. Their support for the Iraq war and their suppressing the story about Bush's illegal domestic surveillance until after the 2004 election gives the lie to the claim that they are any kind of peacemongers.

And today? They are leading the charge toward a war with Russia. The NYT is not for peace. Nor are most liberals anymore. It's been a long time since Vietnam.

What's left of the anti-war movement, anyway? Me and Tulsi, that's about it. — fishfry

Don't leap regarding me. I am against war and I know the NYT is effectively pro-aggression whenever it suits the neo-cons. I can't remember why I originally said that, but I would guess I meant that it is not just conservative newspapers who are involved. It is all mainstream ones. And yes, they are really pushing the demonization of Russia/Putin, implicitly intervention in Syria on the ground. I haven't read them regarding Iran but it would surprise me if they go along. Chomsky wrapped this up long ago for me.
Even regarding Vietnam I am pretty sure they were pro war for years. And then you are already in, and getting out is harder. So, it's a kind of facile opposition and one that shows little real ability to stop people using them as propaganda to get what they want.

And these days liberals and the Left hate Putin more than the right, especially the alt.right . Partly due to Trump.
It's amazing. I am no fan of Putin, but it seems to me he entered Crimea, legally or not, near his own country, where lots of people who identified as Russians lived. I can easily black box the issue of whether this was right or wrong, since by comparison the US has entered many many countries, some with nearly no americans in them. Has military bases all over the place, such as in Africa and special forces fighting sometimes openly sometimes black ops all over the world and is helping Sadia Arabias horrendous war in Yemen with technology and intelligence and war machines.

Your examples didn't convince me. Chris Matthews? — fishfry

It was not my example of Chris Matthews, it was my example of Scooter Libby leaking classified information. Matthew reported the story. Libby was convicted.

Salon? Give me a break. — fishfry

That was from the article you cited in defense of your argument!

You really want to defend the NYT's role in this awful thing? — fishfry

I am not defending their role. They got some things wrong, many of them Miller was responsible for. You have not provided any evidence that it was deliberate, only your "sincere belief". As to the role of the Times, you greatly exaggerate it. It circulation was nowhere near that of the nightly television news. Neither the White House decision nor the intelligence, which the White House ignored, was based on Miller's report. You have got it backwards. It is not as if they all waited around sat around waiting to Miller to provide them with information. The White House fed NYT misinformation through Miller and then pointed to what she reported to support their claims. That is not my sincere belief, it is grounded in the solid evidence that convicted Libby.

What the NYT published was fake news. — fishfry

If fake news is deliberate falsification then the only evidence you have provided in defense of that is your
"sincere belief".

But in another response to Wayfarer you said:

My point is that fake news is used these days to label what I would call alternative news, any questioning of the mainstream narrative. — fishfry

So, if the NYT represents the mainstream narrative and you are questioning that narrative then what you say is fake news.

I'm pointing this out because when we label the alt-left or the alt-right as fake news and whatever the NYT publishes as the Shining Truth ... — fishfry

I don't know who you imagine "we" to be but no one here has claimed that the whatever the NYT publishes as the Shining Truth.

But ok, Judith Miller is just misunderstood. If you say so. — fishfry

I did not say so. She reported things that were false. The first question is whether she knew what she was saying was false. The second is whether there is a distinction between fake news and false information. I am not defending Miller, I am saying that the distinction between deliberate falsification and false information is an important one. This distinction was clear when the term 'fake news' came into circulation a few years ago, but has been blurred.

The depth of my passionate disagreement with that viewpoint precludes me from engaging in rational discussion of the point. — fishfry

That much is evident, but still it has been fun pointing out just how irrational your argument is.

Yes, thanks for mentioning it. That's exactly what fake news is. — fishfry

What you missed is the word 'complicit'. Reporting what they said is not to be complicit in the lie.

That complicity is complicated. — Coben

They, meaning every news outlet that reported on what what the White House claimed, were not complicit in the manufacturing of lies, but yes, when, for example, the television networks carried Colin Powell's U.N. speech live, they played an unwitting role in spreading those lies.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the term 'fake news' originally referred to the deliberate manufacturing of false information, but quickly came to mean any information that is claimed to be false.

They, meaning every news outlet that reported on what what the White House claimed, were not complicit in the manufacturing of lies, but yes, when, for example, the television networks carried Colin Powell's U.N. speech live, they played an unwitting role in spreading those lies. — Fooloso4

And when they did not effectively or at question the lies. When,for various conscious and unconscious motivations and fears, failed to do their job adequately. And in some cases perhaps more consciously went along. I am not ruling out the latter. There are many reasons to go along with power and also they may share values with those actively lying. But I was emphasizing how complicity can manifest in many different ways.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the term 'fake news' originally referred to the deliberate manufacturing of false information, but quickly came to mean any information that is claimed to be false. — Fooloso4

I think there is a range of complicities as I argued a few posts up. There were assumptions made, for example, about Colin Powell's photos, that good journalists should know better than to assume. It is a hard thing to think a government would make up a bunch of stuff to get people to go to war and that their motivations could be crass and economic. Of course many of the same people who were in the administration played down Hussein's gassing of the Kurds, gave him weapons when he was pretty much the same dictator they were demonizing now, so there were good grounds to question the information they were giving. On the other hand there were tremendous pressures not to do that. Not doing your job dependant on what in the end are personal concerns (which one may not be fully or even partially conscious of is complicity.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/aug/13/pressandpublishing.usa

The funny thing is that even in their mea culpas they refer to the 'minority' of skeptics. But that is also confused. There were very few people presenting information that WMDs were there. Then the newspapers without rigor and with paradigmantic bias and self-protective bias presented that 'information' as facts. Well, sure after that there was a minoriy of skeptics. But if rigorous treatment of administration motives, disinformation, past history with that country,had be carried out, there might not have been a minority skepticism but a majority one.

Monday morning quarterbacking. With time and distance and additional information things look a lot different than they did then.

Fake news is when the establishment sells big lies to the public. It's NOT when little alt-websites question the establishment. Fake news is the Big Lie that the government sells to the people. That's the point, which in retrospect I should have just said right up front several posts ago. Fake news is how the powers that be keep everyone frightened and compliant. That's what fake news is. — fishfry

In Pakistan, the vast majority of people are completely convinced that the entire story of Bin Laden’s killing was fabricated by the Obama administration. In Russia, almost the whole population believes that 9/11 was wholly prepared and organized by the CIA to create the pretext for invasion into Afghanistan. Numerous Russian political analysts and various experts support this narrative. Yet, most likely, these false narratives have become dominant without governments’ involvement. Apparently, these examples do not comply with your understanding of Fake news.

Monday morning quarterbacking. With time and distance and additional information things look a lot different than they did then. — Fooloso4

It looked like bullshit then. The Neocons had openly suggested via the project for a new century that they find a way to get in that country. The terrorists were Saudis. They had a photo of......? Where.....? I notice you didn't respond to the fact that the very people selling the war, the people around Bush, had been with Bush 1 and Reagan and sold weapons to Hussein, and had nto admitted that that was perhaps not a great idea - heck, they even made money off Iran who Sadaam was fighting. The administration had ties to oil and rebuilding companies hwo later got contracts. There was so much evidence then that the people selling the war had other potential motives, which is why there were serious skeptics. If the media had done some real ciritical reporting, well, maybe. But they did not. They had dozens of enormous reasons not to trust what was being sold, even though the neo-cons had actually announced a few years earlier that they wanted to find an excuse, yes, they actually openly were looking for one, to gon into that country. And that's why people were skeptical then, while the bs was in the news. People like me. You are monday quarterbacking the critics of media then who were already in motion. And not going a good job of it.

I notice you didn't respond to the fact that the very people selling the war, the people around Bush — Coben

I did not respond because I had made the same point in other posts. The question is whether news sources deliberately and knowingly manufactured false information.

And that's why people were skeptical then, while the bs was in the news. People like me. — Coben

And me. But being skeptical is not the same as having all the evidence in hand to get the story straight. Reporters rely on intelligence agencies. In some cases the information the agencies have is inaccurate and incomplete, and in others, it is deliberately false. If news sources waited until all the evidence is in and properly evaluated, it would be years before stories are reported. A credible news source revises and updates the information they receive as it unfolds.

No doubt there are things being reported now and in the recent past that are wrong. Can you identify them? Years from now you might criticize the reports but cannot do so now. Things always look different in the rear view mirror.

You are monday quarterbacking the critics of media then who were already in motion. — Coben

Not at all. I supported those who exposed the lies. It was not, however, as if all the facts were evident from the beginning. I am sure that the critics also reported some things that were false. Trying to sort things out in the moment and looking back are two different things. It is the job of the news to report what it finds out, it is our job to decide what seems most credible to us. There are some stories that you or I may be skeptical of, but that is not a good reason for the story not to be reported, for we may be wrong. There are some sources that we may trust more than others, but none should be expected to always get everything right. I do, however, expect the one's I trust to continue working to uncover the truth, and that takes time and can involve errors.

Literary criticism covers the analysis of rhetoric. That's most of what fake news is. Ergo, literary analysis would be helpful to the analysis of fake news. — NKBJ

Rhetoric! That would relate the phenomenon of Fake news to the art of affecting the audience. Further, it could imply the oversimplification, explaining its emergence by outstanding qualities of a few leaders (Trump, Farage, Johnson…). Of course, one could examine their rhetorical devices; yet, one would find a lot of better contemporary or past speakers or politicians. Moreover, Trump's rhetoric and his oratorical style are not prominent at all, they are quite modest and monotonic.

I'd go so far as to say any close analysis of the wording of fake news is literary criticism, whether intentional or not. — NKBJ

Narratives that are going viral in social media usually have simple and poor structure, so that literary
criticism would not be an appropriate research tool here.
Getting back to literature: There was a quote from Neil Postman, "Amusing Ourselves To Death."
I started thinking that interpretation of some Kafka’s texts ("The giant Mole," and "The Burrow"), could become relevant for understanding Fake news.

Fake news is the justification the government of China used for the censorship of the internet, and now we get to watch as the same thing happens in the west.

That would relate the phenomenon of Fake news to the art of affecting the audience. — Number2018

Since that is it's aim....well, duh.

Moreover, Trump's rhetoric and his oratorical style are not prominent at all, they are quite modest and monotonic. — Number2018

And yet effective. Hence the usage of rhetoric to examine them.

Narratives that are going viral in social media usually have simple and poor structure, so that literary
criticism would not be an appropriate research tool here. — Number2018

And yet effective. Hence the usage of literary criticism to examine them.

From ancient mythology to Hemingway to subway graffiti, literary criticism has not let the simplicity of a text deter it from fulfilling its job.

Moreover, Trump's rhetoric and his oratorical style are not prominent at all, they are quite modest and monotonic.
— Number2018

And yet effective. Hence the usage of rhetoric to examine them.

Narratives that are going viral in social media usually have simple and poor structure, so that literary
criticism would not be an appropriate research tool here.
— Number2018

And yet effective. Hence the usage of literary criticism to examine them. — NKBJ

Trump's tweeting hyperactivity by many people has been considered as one of the examples of Fake News. Apparently, they are functional and effective! Nevertheless, I doubt that their textual or literary analyses (though it could be helpful) can fully explain their effectiveness. (The same is right about the subway graffitis)
They are short, simple, and rough literary devices. Therefore, we need to evolve various contextual factors, maintaining and ensuring their success. The analyses of the overall situation on social media could be useful. While in literature, as well as in our lives, there is not a black and white message, but a far more nuanced one, the public Internet sphere is primarily occupied by trivial and oversimplified "meme" that "resonates" with a person's prejudices, so gets sent around the globe in an instant. The people who are posting complete rubbish on social media, day in and day out, as a sort of obsession in life, are not able to make timely efforts to get focused and sit down for hours to analyze and reflect on the problems we face.

From ancient mythology to Hemingway to subway graffiti, literary criticism has not let the simplicity of a text deter it from fulfilling its job. — NKBJ

I do not argue that literary criticism is not a relevant tool for analyzing Fake News. However, I would appreciate it if you could provide an example of its application. :smile:

The analyses of the overall situation on social media could be useful. While in literature, as well as in our lives, there is not a black and white message, but a far more nuanced one, the public Internet sphere is primarily occupied by trivial and oversimplified "meme" that "resonates" with a person's prejudices, so gets sent around the globe in an instant. The people who are posting complete rubbish on social media, day in and day out, as a sort of obsession in life, are not able to make timely efforts to get focused and sit down for hours to analyze and reflect on the problems we face. — Number2018

Well, that's a literary analysis right there.

I do not argue that literary criticism is not a relevant tool for analyzing Fake News. However, I would appreciate it if you could provide an example of its application. — Number2018

Um, but you literally said:

Both books are great, but I do not think literature or literary criticism could be relevant to understand fake news. — Number2018

In any case, we can take Trump's latest tweet:
"Robert Mueller is being asked to testify yet again. He said he could only stick to the Report, & that is what he would and must do. After so much testimony & total transparency, this Witch Hunt must now end. No more Do Overs. No Collusion, No Obstruction. The Great Hoax is dead!"

Passive voice in the first sentence hides the details of who's asking Mueller to testify.
He points out that Mueller "must" stick to the report. The way he says it, implies that it Mueller does so, then Trump will look good. But anyone familiar with the report knows that it implies that Trump has been linked to a large number of crimes. But Trump bets on his followers not looking, and so he presents it in this positive light for himself.
He uses the metaphor of a witch hunt to imply that the accusers are baseless and fanatical.
He uses the word "collusion" again, which is not a crime anyone was actually looking to charge him with, so duh there's none of that.
He lies about the obstruction. Just a blatant lie: he has, publicly, repeatedly obstructed justice. But he just repeats these lines over and over again, because at some point, when it's heard again and again, people start believing it.
Personification of the "Great Hoax" as some (presumably) evil creature which is now dead.
He uses (ungrammatical) capitalization to emphasize words.
He uses incomplete sentences for emphasis and simplicity.
He's ungrammatical on purpose, because it makes him look less intellectually elitist and his followers like a leader who's not too much smarter than they are. They want to think that they could be him, that he's one of them.
And finally, he uses ampersands, in part because they help with the character count for tweets, but also because they look official and business-y.

I mean, that's just a cursory glance at one tweet. It's clear to me that any analysis of how Trump and Fake News works necessarily include a huge element of literary analysis.

And finally, he uses ampersands, in part because they help with the character count for tweets, but also because they look official and business-y. — NKBJ

You're reaching too far with this one. Careful or you'll look beyond pretentious.

You're reaching too far with this one. Careful or you'll look beyond pretentious. — Noblosh

Nope, I'm not.

And, for the record, I really don't care much if some anonymous person (you) on the internet thinks I'm pretentious for the pretty benign act of interpreting an ampersand. I think that conveys more a sense of your own personal insecurities than it reflects on me.

But good day to you as well.

You're free to dismiss my personal impression (if I wasn't clear, that is that your analysis is excesive), that goes without saying, I'm not sure why you assumed hostility, though. You can just say I reached too far myself, no need to imply I have any kind of personal issues because I made a quippy criticism directed towards you.

I'm not sure why you assumed hostility, though — Noblosh

If your intent had merely been to point out a flaw in my reasoning, you would have left it at that. Instead you made a snippy remark to go along with your (unreasoned) claim that I got something wrong.

Don't dish it out if you can't take it.

Oh c'mon, there's no way to conclude that Donald Trump uses ampersands with intent. Even the intent you mentioned is questionable (business-y?). I think it would be better to retract that one as not to spoil the rest of the analysis. My apologies for trying to be subtle previously.

My apologies for trying to be subtle previously. — Noblosh

I'm not sure what word you're looking for, but subtle is not it. Vague perhaps? Flippant? Boorish?

As for the rest of your commentary, literary criticism frequently deals with the epistemological question of authorial intent and how do we know it. Sure, I don't live in Trump's mind (thank goodness), and I have serious doubts about his intellect. However, (much) literary analysis allows for the judgment that something is intended, when you can make a convincing case for it:

1. Trump is an avid Twitter-er, and so knows how that system works and how to send out a message to his base.
2. Trump is always trying to come across like a successful business tycoon (though history belies that).
3. Trump has publicly explained choices that seem just as mundane with the same intent: consider his insistence on using a Sharpie for presidential signatures.

Ergo, it is not at all far-fetched to think that he uses ampersands on purpose. Even if he started doing so accidentally, he persists with it for a reason.

He uses the word "collusion" again, which is not a crime anyone was actually looking to charge him with — NKBJ

Hasn’t Mueller been appointed to investigate the alleged collusion of Trump’s campaign with Russia? And, hasn’t it been the alleged crime?

Passive voice in the first sentence hides the details of who's asking Mueller to testify.
He points out that Mueller "must" stick to the report. The way he says it, implies that it Mueller does so, then Trump will look good. But anyone familiar with the report knows that it implies that Trump has been linked to a large number of crimes. But Trump bets on his followers not looking, and so he presents it in this positive light for himself.
He uses the metaphor of a witch hunt to imply that the accusers are baseless and fanatical. — NKBJ

Personification of the "Great Hoax" as some (presumably) evil creature which is now dead.
He uses (ungrammatical) capitalization to emphasize words.
He uses incomplete sentences for emphasis and simplicity.
He's ungrammatical on purpose, because it makes him look less intellectually elitist and his followers like a leader who's not too much smarter than they are. They want to think that they could be him, that he's one of them.
And finally, he uses ampersands, in part because they help with the character count for tweets, but also because they look official and business. — NKBJ

Thank you for the comprehensive analyses! (I think that Trump himself would be
surprised to learn how sophisticated his communicative devices are :smile: ). I would like to tackle a few key points of your account. The most important one is about the regime of truth, effectuated in this tweet, in Fake news, and, probably, in contemporary politics. When you say that Trump lies, (and, we can substitute a lot of other politicians
for him), your basic premise is that objective truth exists, and there is a solid frame of reference and verification methods. You wrote: “But anyone familiar with the report knows that it implies that Trump has been linked to a large number of crimes.” What do you mean by the expression “familiar with the report”? Do you actually expect Trump audience to read a redacted version of 448 pages report? Of course, they are familiar with the report, but through a partisan interpretation and hermeneutics, taking place in a space absolutely different from an academic field. The vast majority of people who are talking, writing, and judging about the report did not read it. Yet, we are not in the world of the endless exegesis, where the sacred text (The Bible, or Marx’s “Capital”) has been continuously reinterpreted. Trump’s audience got familiar with the report even before it was published! Social media, as well as Mainstream media,
have transformed Mueller’s investigation into an object of a new kind, where “the real and the imaginary, the actual and the virtual, chase after each other, exchange their roles and become indiscernible.” Deleuze differentiates between two regimes of truth: there are an “organic” regime and a “crystalline” regime. In an “organic” regime, descriptions and narrations presuppose a pre-existing external reality.
In contrast, a crystalline description or narration stands for its object, replaces it, both creates and erases it. Deleuze’s ideas are indispensable for understanding and explaining Fake news! While an organic regime requires the clear difference between truth and false, a crystalline regime has been grounded on endless metamorphosis, the power of the false. Does Deleuzian crystalline image (or Trump, or a talk show host) lie? Jeffrey Nealon: “The time image’s direct power of the false does not work through the mediation of the true (by interpreting, deconstructing, or the questioning the objectivist truth – (they are still major tasks of literary criticism)), but gives another account of the real altogether…There is a shift from a focus on understanding something to a concern with manipulating it, from meaning to usage”.

Hasn’t Mueller been appointed to investigate the alleged collusion of Trump’s campaign with Russia? And, hasn’t it been the alleged crime? — Number2018

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/07/12/what-is-collusion-215366

your basic premise is that objective truth exists — Number2018

Yes. And anything else is nonsensical.

What do you mean by the expression “familiar with the report”? Do you actually expect Trump audience to read a redacted version of 448 pages report? Of course, they are familiar with the report, but through a partisan interpretation and hermeneutics, taking place in a space absolutely different from an academic field. — Number2018

My point exactly. And Trump knows that.

There is a shift from a focus on understanding something to a concern with manipulating it, from meaning to usage”. — Number2018

True.

In any case, I've proven the relevancy of literary criticism for understanding Fake News. There are other things that can be helpful in understanding it, sure. But it's a large part of the dissection of this phenomena.

Fake news is the latest bogeyman of censors, who, like China before them, use it to justify censorship and state regulation of the internet.