Recently Google and Facebook came under fire about helping to stop 'fake news.'

Many believe this was brought on by angry people who were upset about Hillary losing the election and were looking for someone to blame.

Immediately came the reports that 'false news' and 'fake news' about Hillary was to blame for why she lost. What really happened was independent media outlets did their due diligence in digging into information, found out what Hillary has been up to and reported on it. This included leaks from WikiLeaks and other whistleblowers.

Of course, the media came forward and began calling WikiLeaks a non-credible source.

They stated that Russian hacks were at the helm of much of it so as to distract people from looking at the truth, but it didn't work, because independent media was too powerful.

So now there is a mass effort to discredit, call out and shun independent media for supposedly reporting on fake news. Who defines it as fake news? That's the question of the hour right now.

Let's truly understand what's going on with fake news first.

BuzzFeed did a great story on this showing how legitimately false stories gained a ton of attention. This is a problem for all of us because it's legitimately false info that is spreading. However, the focus now gets turned on all independent outlets who are going against the mainstream narrative but who are reporting on factual news.

Let's not get confused, fake news are fake news. And most of the websites doing their due diligence to call out fake news are doing so by only focusing on fake stories.

The list that surfaced calling out 'fake news' contains a number for websites that do not post any fake news at all:

This is the problem...

Why Independent News Is Necessary

Let's put things into perspective for a moment.

We are here at Standing Rock in North Dakota reporting on what's happening down here with the Dakota Access Pipeline. There is absolutely no mainstream media down here. No one covering what's going on at all.

Why? Money, business, politics, it's what drives mainstream media and its corruption.

It's not hard to understand why independent news exists given these facts.

With the majority of the mainstream media being owned by just five corporations, diverse viewpoints and interpretations of world events have become scarce.

And when you understand that most outlets are serving some sort of corporate or political agenda, you start to notice how those biases play out in the representation of certain stories, and even in how frequently they're covered.

Showing certain stories over others, and showing them repeatedly, goes a long way towards shaping public opinion.

A great quote here that directly related to modern day mainstream media.

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. 

 

Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of."

Edward Bernays

("the father of public relations"), Propaganda - 1928 

Note that Bernays' book, Propaganda, begins with the above quote

Many are unaware of how often important stories are blacked out completely by all of mainstream media.

The major pipeline spill that occurred during the Standing Rock protests or the revelation that the Pentagon paid a PR firm to create fake terrorist videos are just two recent examples.

• Are these not things the people should know about?

   

• Why aren't they being reported on?

This leads us to wonder if there is in fact an agenda to hide this information. And how might that work?

Sharyl Atkisson, a former CBS investigative journalist, explained that "astroturf," or fake grassroots movements, funded by political, corporate, or other special interests, are very effectively manipulating and distorting mainstream media messages.

Further, here is a document declassified by the CIA that outlines their involvement in manipulating media, journalists, authors, films, and more to have,

"reporters postpone, change, hold, or even scrap stories that could have adversely affected national security interests or jeopardized sources and methods." 

The 'national security' play has always been a way for these agencies to justify shady actions.

Source

Given the shady dealings, agency manipulation, and ownership structure of most of mainstream media, the need for alternative voices is clear.

• But how should we view those alternative voices?

   

• Do we take their work at face value?

The Problems With Independent News and Mainstream News

I have seen a lot in the past seven years and I have seen the independent movement lose a lot of credibility - for GOOD reason.

It's easy to dismiss alternative news websites because so many of them so carelessly carry out their work. There are 'good' ones out there, but they are vastly outnumbered by the 'bad'.

This is the actual problem with fake and false news. 

I decided to write this because, as someone working within this movement and who cares a lot about creating a better world, I want people to know the truth so they can make informed decisions. As much as I respect many people for what they do, there is an inherent danger in not raising awareness about this.

If we expose mainstream media, we should expose alternative media too; it's only fair.

One of the main issues is that people are not reading content these days. They are reading headlines and making complete decisions based on those headlines.

While outlets have to stay vigilant with writing good and clear headlines, people also need to read articles to actually check for sources, legitimacy and what the mains points of the piece are.

This isn't happening!

The honest truth is that everyone is guilty of writing bad headlines sometimes, Huffpost, Buzzfeed, TYT, MSNBC, CNN, or any independent site. Everyone does it at some point, because no one is perfect and sometimes it's necessary.

This is why it's important for readers to actually read content and to really learn to use discernment rather than just reading a title. Connecting with how the information makes you feel at a deeper level than our belief systems is what will help us to really discern truth.

We are being challenged to grow, to go within and to understand ourselves at a deeper level.

Why it Has to Change But May Not For a While

People are starting to realize en mass that the mainstream media has its own agendas, and rarely, if ever, do they align with our well-being. They are starting to move away from this sponsored, biased content and looking for other sources.

The question becomes, 

what will they find instead?

The elite controlled media is panicking right now.

They are trying to figure out for the first time in their existence how independent media gained more power than they did during this election cycle and ultimately lost.

This isn't to say Trump isn't able to be manipulated by the cabal, but that he clearly wasn't their choice.

Because the media and cabal is frantic right now, they are going to do anything in their power to divert attention away from websites that aren't actually reporting on fake news, but that are a threat to the mainstream narrative, a threat to the establishment.

Fake news doesn't seem to be the issue when you look at the list of websites who made the list of "false or fake news".

As a media organization that spends a lot of time doing what we do, hiring the necessary people to make sure work is done right and articles researched properly, we have to stand up and continue to raise awareness about what is really happening here.

This is an attack on websites that are helping to wake people up from the mainstream narrative. So now you know. You know what to look out for and what to do.

My advice is, stop supporting and sharing content that isn't sourced or well researched. Think twice, three times or even four times about what narrative mainstream media is pushing on you.

Sharing content from certain outlets only further confuses this entire process...