Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Consider some rules of the English language. Afterwards, let’s start listening to what is said.

Allow me to digress a few moments into English language and usage.

Fake news is news. Notice the noun “news” is there in the phrase “fake news.” The word “fake” is merely an adjective attached to the noun.

Okay, so “fake news” is a type of news. Do we listen to news? If “yes,” we listen to fake news as well.

We used to see fake news in the National Enquirer where “Hillary Clinton has an alien baby.” Now we have fake news published by everyone in Facebook et al.

There were many messages in those “Hillary Clinton has an alien baby” stories. One was, “This is America. We have free speech. We can even poke fun at our institutions of democracy without going to jail.”

That is a pretty powerful message in the fake news. There are many other powerful messages in that fake news and today’s fake news.

Let us pause to celebrate and listen to fake news. It is, after all, news and it does contain often-powerful messages. Rational adults knew that Hillary wasn’t having alien babies. The rational adults far outnumbered the other type and kept them at bay.