Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes we forget some of the fundamentals of “news.”

Fake news: this is the stuff we used read in the grocery store checkout counter in The National Enquirer. My mother never let me buy one, but they had great headlines about then first lady Hillary Clinton having an alien baby and other great stuff.

Real news: it snowed six inches today. The baseball scores are…

Non news: this is the one folks seem to struggle with most.

There are strong ties between the sex industry and the tech (or any) industry. This is true, so it is sort of real news, but it is also old as dirt, so it is non-news.

People mistreat others; again, real news as it is true, but it is also old as dirt, so it is non-news.

Journalists lie to sell their stories. Real, true news, but old as dirt and non-news.

Fake news used to be fun. Then some self-proclaimed declarative person declared that the rest of us actually believed that the President’s wife had an alien baby, and fake news became some sort of a crime.

Real news is verifiable. What fun is that?

Non-news is just the same old stuff.

Let’s try to keep these straight.