Fake News, for real

I’m a sucker for documentaries. It doesn’t even have to be about something I’m interested in. I recently sat through one about the history of the Barbie doll. There’s just something about getting an in-depth look at a person, event, idea, whatever that hooks me.

In recent months, I’ve watched multi-part documentaries about Charles Manson, Antarctica, the Bee Gees, the McDonald’s Monopoly fraud case, the Night Stalker, and Richard Pryor. Give me some talking heads and some crime scene footage or home movie footage or behindthe- scenes footage and we’re good to go.

Well, just the other day, I came across one called “After Truth: Disinformation and the Cost of Fake News.” It was on HBO, so you know it was a raw, uncensored look at how the truth is manipulated, twisted and even outright ignored online and in the media. It was pretty eye-opening, both for how pervasive lies and conspiracies are often passed off as the truth and for how easily people can be manipulated into believing whatever they are told no matter how preposterous it is, so long as it either comes from a source they want to believe or is something bad about someone or something they don’t like.

It’s only about an hour-and-a-half long, but it goes pretty in depth about things like Russian Collusion, Pizzagate, Hillary’s Hit List and such. And while it does knock Trump a bit, it also calls out some Democrats.

My favorite line from it is one I had heard before but not in a long time: “Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see.”