Unacceptable and/or phony news sites to avoid

[PrisonerOfHope]

We're really big on truth here, and don't permit false or questionable news stories.  To that end, please do not post stories from World Nut Daily (If you find something that looks legit, PM a mod for permission), Before It's News, or anything from Paul Begley (ARE YOU SERIOUS? ? ? ? ? ?) who sensationalizes everything. Please take the time to verify the veracity of an article before posting it.

Here are a few ways that can help you identify a fake-news article:


Check Real News Sites

If a news story is real and significant, many news outlets will likely cover it. Thus, searching for the topic on a news aggregator such as Google News should reveal if a story is genuine.


The absence of any references to the story on genuine news websites should certainly raise a red flag.


Check Other Stories on The Site

Have a browse through other stories featured on the site. Do many of them sound weird or unbelievable? And, again, can any of the stories be confirmed via legitimate news outlets?


Check for Disclaimer

Some fake-news 'satire' sites include a disclaimer that states that stories published on the site are fictional or satirical. The disclaimer is often on the site's 'About' page. Or it may be included in the site's footer.


Unfortunately, not all such sites include a disclaimer. Nevertheless, if you suspect that a news article that you are reading may be untrue, it is worth checking for a disclaimer.


Check Reports of Site on Other Websites

Often doing a search such as '< name of site > satire', '< name of site > hoax', or '< name of site > fake' can bring up reports on other websites that reveal the true nature of the site.


The list of fake news sites is rapidly growing. Many of them stealthily mix truth with fiction. Here are some that could be considered to promote satirical, tabloid and sensationalism content (not a comprehensive list); if you have any sites to add to the list (new ones pop up all the time), please let us know:


Alternet.

American News

BeforeItsNews.

Charismanews.

Christwire.

Chronicle.

ConsciousLifeNews.

CounterPsyOps.

CSGlobal.

DailyCurrant.

DailyPaul.

DCClothesline.

DownTrend.

Duffleblog.

EagleRising.

EmpireNews.

Empiresports.

English.ruvr.

EUTimes.

Examiner.

FederalistPress.

FreedomOutpost.

FreePatriot.

Freewoodpost.com

FromTheTrenchesWorldReport.

GlobalResearch.

GonzoGlobe.

GovtSlaves.

GulagBound.

HangTheBankers.

HealthImpactNews.

Huzlers.

InfoWars.

IntelliHub.

InternetChronicle.

ItMakesSenseBlog.

Jewsnews.co.

LewRockwell.

LibertyDigest.

MrConservative.

NationalReport.

NaturalCuresNotMedicine.

NaturalNews.

Nowtheendbegins.

PaleoConservatives

PalookavillePost.

PoliticalBlindSpot.

PrisonPlanet.

RandPaulReview.

RealFarmacy.

RedFlagNews.

SouthWeb.

TheCommonSenseShow.

TheControversialFiles.

TheDailySheeple.

TheIsraeliDaily

TheLastGreatStand.

TheMidEastBeast.

TheRightPlanet.

TopInfoPost.

UndergroundHealth.

USAHitman.

VeteransToday.

VineOfLifeNews.

Waterford Whisper News.

WesternJournalism.

WhyDontYouTryThis.

witscience.

WorldTruth.

[schwartzie]

The following websites are fake news websites that prey on conservatives

Do not share National Report headlines on Facebook. They are 100% fake stories.



The following are fake websites. The purpose of these websites are to make money. They create fake headlines that people want to believe. This prompts readers to share the headlines on Facebook. Often these sites get tens of thousands of Facebook shares for their fake articles. This generates ad revenue for the site.

The following fake news site either prey of conservatives specifically or at least tend run headlines that conservatives would like to believe are true. Some of these site generate massive amounts of traffic due to viral Facebook sharing. The owners are laughing all the way to the bank.

DailyCurrant.com (100% fake political stories)

NationalReport.net (100% fake political stories)

WorldNewsDailyReport.com (100% fake archaeology news)

AmericanNews.com (Articles are half fake. Takes real stories and adds a fake twist.)

Celebtricity.com (100% fake celebrity news)

The site NationalReport.net seems to be actively trying to embarrass conservative on social media. People think it is a mainline conservative/TEA Party site because they have a picture of Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz in their top banner. When a conservative website falls for one of their hoaxes and syndicates the story, left-wing website then mock them. NationalReport.net has become a source of entertainment for the left.

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[PrisonerOfHope]

WTOE-5 News.  From their website:


About Us



Contact us:



[e-mail]



About wtoe5news.com:



WTOE 5 News is a fantasy news website. Most articles on wtoe5news.com are satire or pure fantasy.



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[J.J.Gibbs]

Here's a list I just came across the other day. There's some duplication from the other lists, but also some new ones.  I included the link, as they'll probably update the list as new phony news sites crop up.

I used to like Red Flag News when they first started, but now the site is full of pop-ups and click bait, yet they have the audacity to ask for donations! As for Natural News, IMHO I don't think it belongs on this list.

FAKE NEWS WATCH

Last updated: 01/18/2016




FAKE/HOAX NEWS WEBSITES



Fake/Hoax News sites are satire sites that are not funny. They are an attempt to play on gullible people who do not check sources and will just pass the news on as if it were really true. Below is the list of know Fake/Hoax News Websites:



AmericanNews.com

BigAmericanNews.com

Cap News (twitter.com/capnews)

ChristWire.org

CivicTribune.com

ClickHole.com

CreamBMP.com

DCGazette.com

DailyCurrant.com

DCClothesLine.com

DerfMagazine.com

DrudgeReport.com.co

DuhProgressive.com

EmpireNews.com

EnduringVision.com

Indecision Forever (www.cc.com/indecision)

MSNBC.co

MSNBC.website

MediaMass.net

NationalReport.net

NewsBiscuit.com

News-Hound.com

NewsMutiny.com

PoliticalEars.com

Private-eye.co.uk

RealNewsRightNow.com

RileNews.com

Sprotspickle.com

TheNewsNerd.com

TheUsPatriot.com

WitScience.org

SATIRE WEBSITES



Satire websites are sites that make fun of the news. The stories are typically over the top and meant to be funny. The most famous satire site is The Onion. Below is the list of satire websites:



TheOnion.com

AmplifyingGlass.com

Duffleblog.com

EmpireSports.co

GomerBlog.com

Huzlers.com

iTagLive.com/

Newslo.com

NahaDaily.com

RockCityTimes.com

TheLapine.ca

TheSpoof.com

WeeklyWorldNews.com

WorldNewsDailyReport.com


CLICKBAIT WEBSITES



Clickbait websites are sites that take bits of true stories but insinuate and make up other details to sow fear. Most of these are conspiratorial in nature are very unreliable. Below are a list of these websites:



21stCenturyWire.com

ActivistPost.com

BeforeItsNews.com

BigPZone.com

Chronicle.su

CoastToCoastAM.com

ConsciousLifeNews.com

ConservativeOutfitters.com

ConspiracyWire (WideAwakeAmerica.com)

CountdownToZeroTime.com

CounterPsyOps.com

DailyBuzzLive.com

Disclose.tv

FPRNradio.com

GeoEngineeringWatch.org

GlobalResearch.ca

GovtSlaves.info

GulagBound.com

JonesReport.com

HangTheBankers.com

HumansAreFree.com

Infowars.com

IntelliHub.com

LewRockwell.com

LibertyTalk.fm

LibertyVideos.org

LMR (LibertyMovementRadio.com)

MegynKelly.us

NaturalNews.com

NewsWire-24.com

NoDisInfo.com

NowTheEndBegins.com

PakAlertPress.com

PoliticalBlindSpot.com

PrisonPlanet.com

PrisonPlanet.tv

RealFarmacy.com

RedFlagNews.com

TruthFrequencyRadio.com

TheDailySheeple.com

TheRunDownLive.com

UnconfirmedSources.com

VeteransToday.com

WakingUpWisconsin.com

WorldTruth.tv

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[Berean]

Add "Business Standard News" (BS News) to the list.  

Also "TruthFeedNews." 

[schwartzie]

The Great Satirical-News Scam 
The Onion is funny. These other sites aren't—and that's intentional. They're cashing in on your gullibility and knee-jerk outrage.

BY EMMETT RENSIN

June 5, 2014


There’s nothing that gets American journalists quite so giddy as an authoritarian mouthpiece failing to get a joke—as when, in September 2012, Iran's semiofficial Fars News Agency reported on a Gallup poll that found an overwhelming majority of rural white Americans preferred President Ahmadinejad to President Obama. It wasn't a real Gallup poll, of course: It was an Onion article, as every English-language news site in the world gleefully pointed out. A month later, it was The People's Daily turn, as the official newspaper of China's Communist Party reported that a certain American newspaper had named North Korea’s Kim Jong Un the “Sexiest Man Alive.” Again, the internet erupted with laughter.


But like any good tale of hubris, some those same American websites—along with countless, hapless Facebook users—proved equally gullible in the coming months. The Washington Post fell for a report that Sarah Palin was joining Al Jazeera America, Breitbart believed that Nobel Prize–winning economist Paul Krugman had filed for bankruptcy, and Drudge Report splashed an article claiming that a New York pizzeria owner, angry over the proposed ban on large sodas, had refused to serve Mayor Michael Bloomberg a second slice. The culprit this time wasn't The Onion, though. It was The Daily Currant, a site that calls itself “The Global Satirical Newspaper of Record.”



Our domestic media, at least, had an excuse. While it takes a particularly keen immunity to irony to fall for an Onion article these days, The Daily Currant is a fake-news site of a different stripe: one entirely devoid of jokes. Whether this humorlessness is intentional or not—the site's founder contends his critics don't have a sense of subtlety—the site's business model as an ad-driven clickbait-generator relies on it. When Currant stories go viral, it's not because their satire contains essential truths, but rather because their satire is taken as truth—and usually that "truth" is engineered to outrage a particular frequency of the political spectrum. As Slate's Josh Voorhees wrote after Drudge fell for the Bloomberg story, "It's a classic Currant con, one that relies on its mark wanting to believe a particular story is true."



To choose a recent example: “Obama Pledges $700 Billion Bailout of VA” isn’t a headline whose humor you might miss on the first pass but find sly in retrospect. It’s just an unfunny lie, and any American who doesn't keep a close eye on the size of federal budgets—the VA's was $139 billion last year—could be forgiven for believing it. Not every fake-news site needs to signal its intentions as quickly and openly as The Onion does, but The Daily Currant's headlines don’t engage in subtlety so much as fail entirely to signal humorous intention. That would be acceptable, perhaps even clever, if the stories themselves skillfully exploited the reader's initial credulity, the copy growing increasingly ludicrous until the reader realizes the joke. Instead, jokes sometimes materialize in the final lines, but they’re half-baked at best. The VA story ends with Obama dismissing calls for officials to resign. "Why," Obama asks, "would holding people accountable for their actions be necessary?” That neither funny nor satirical. But it rings true to partisans who genuinely believe that Obama thinks that way—the same people who, in a flash of outrage, are most likely to share the story on social media.



The Currant's string of successes in duping media outlets last year drove a brief flurry of head-scratching and hand-wringing. Gawker’s Max Read called the site "semi-believable political wish-fulfillment articles distinguished by a commitment to a complete absence of what most people would recognize as 'jokes.'" Politico's Dylan Byers put it bluntly in his headline, "The Daily Currant Isn't Funny," writing, "If their stories are plausible, it's because they aren't funny enough. No one—almost no one—mistakes The Onion for a real news organization. That's not just because it has greater brand recognition. It's because their stories make readers laugh." And in The New Republic, Luke O'Neil argued that such stories "could do actual damage to political discourse and the media in general... Juicing an already true-enough premise with more unbelievability simply adds to the informational noise pollution—without even the expected payoff of a laugh."



All legitimate gripes, but perhaps that's overthinking it for a site that's the product of under-thinking. The Daily Currant is trying to maximize clicks and shares, and has found a niche between The Onion and real news: all the believability of the latter, but all the libel protections of the former. There's a Catch-22 to this approach, though. As more people have become aware of The Daily Currant—in December, Mediaite whined, "Just Stop It, Everyone: Internet Falls for Daily Currant Fake Story Once Again"—suckers have become increasingly rare. The site is a victim of its own success.



No matter. The formula is easily replicable, as other web entrepreneurs and hucksters have discovered. This poor imitation of The Onion has itself spawned a legion of poor imitations, websites so devoid of infotainment value and so cynical in their click-baiting that they make the likes of Viral Nova and Upworthy look staid.



Daniel Barkeley, The Daily Currant’s founder and editor-in-chief (and, as of last year, one of its two total employees) presents himself as a purveyor of comedic art. In an interview with Slate's David Weigel, he cited Britain's Ricky Gervais and Armando Iannucci as influences, saying, "That’s the kind of comedy I like—it’s made to look real. It’s funnier that way, and we think it’s more intelligent that way. So I guess a byproduct of that is that you end up with parodies that people think are true."



A few months later, after Drudge fell for the Bloomberg pizza-slice story, Barkeley wrote in an email to Politico, "Our headlines themselves aren’t necessarily meant to be funny. (Some are, most aren't). Rather, the humor is supposed to lie in the plot and actions of the characters. Additionally, satire is meant to have a deeper message." He singled out an Onion headline, "'fudge You,' Obama Says In Hilarious Correspondents' Dinner Speech," as one that "clearly" does not have a deeper message.



The lecture didn’t stop there.



"Our style of satire is as old as literature itself," Barkeley continued, "but hasn’t recently been applied to news articles, which is why many in the media appear to be confused by it. But even in the narrow genre of written news satire, this tradition has a long history with Benjamin Franklin and Mark Twain both notorious for publishing such articles."



Benjamin Franklin. Mark Twain. The Daily Currant. If you can't see it, well, maybe you aren’t sophisticated enough for such a subtle brand of commentary.



Barkeley might be an un-clever hack or a clever troll. Or maybe, as Esquire's Charles Pierce generously puts it, "the Currant exists to punk the mainstream media." But at least Barkeley aspires—or pretends to aspire—to greatness, even if he falls desperately short of it. The same can't be said for his many competitors, who see a potentially lucrative con predicated on exploiting the worst habits of social media driven news content.



Their names sound plausible, for the most part: The News Nerd, News-Hound, Huzlers, Demyx, Empire Sports News, Mediamass, National Report and so on. Like The Daily Currant, none suggests humor—except perhaps The Lightly Braised Turnip. Like the Currant, they all identify themselves, with varying degrees of prominence, as being in the business of fake news. There are variations, though. Before its website went down recently, Huzlers published real news alongside outright fabrications, which had the obvious effect of making all its stories seem real. Global Associated News doesn't produce fake stories; it enables users to do so with its "fake celebrity news engine."



But they all have one thing in common: ads. Banners, pop-ups, and sidebars—these sites are saturated with the worst kind of aggressive Internet advertising. On News Nerd, for instance, the article text only begins after no less than four Google ads. That’s perhaps the best hint that this not well-intentioned comedy, but a brazen traffic grab.



“These sites don’t worry about saturating their pages with a ton of ads because they don’t really care about anybody staying on the page very long after ending up there," Joseph Finkelstein, an SEO expert with Los Angeles-based design firm Desired Reaction, told me. "The articles themselves are just filler stuffed with high trending, low competition keywords associated with current news stories. The way they make money is all in the headlines— they’re designed to be inflammatory but just believable enough to entice partisans to click on them—or better yet, share them—without looking too hard. Each page is so loaded up with revenue-generating advertisements that as long as they can get people to click over for a minute, they’re making money.”



That’s the con. News Nerd and its ilk cram user-unfriendly ads into every available space because the sites don't rely on visitors ever deliberately returning. Instead, they publish intentionally deceptive content that's just believable enough to get shared and go viral. An appreciable sense of humor would, in fact, be bad for business—unless they can do it as well as The Onion, which no one has proven able to. As long as news traffic is driven by social-media sharing, bad satire news sites will remain profitable.



But to blame News Nerd for your credulous reading of a News Nerd story is like blaming P.T. Barnum for your belief that George Washington had a 160-year-old nurse. So long as we keep buying the snake oil, somebody’s going to be craven enough to produce it. We’ve got nobody to blame but ourselves.



Upworthy and Viralnova, at least, are honest about what they're selling: gaudy, sentimental, life-affirming stories. But the Currant class promises humor and almost universally fails to deliver it—because the actual goal is SEO clickbait. Given that, you might wonder why they even bother identifying themselves, usually in disclaimers at the bottom of the page, as satirical news sites.The answer is simple: to avoid a lawsuit.



In the U.S., satirical writing—even if it makes reference to real people, and even if those references are defaming—is protected speech. But according to Harvard Law professor Bruce Hay, there are established standards for determining whether or not content is comedic and not criminally libelous—standards that can get tricky when your business is predicated on deceiving your readers. “The question a court would ask is whether the average reader would think the article was factual or satirical,” he says. While it’s unclear if somebody would win a libel suit against a purely fake news site—nobody has tried suing one yet—the risk is theoretically significant enough that these sites have decided not to chance it. As long as the disclaimer is there, they assume they’re protected.



At least, that appears to be their reasoning. The creators of these sites, when they can be identified at all, aren’t talking. With the exception of National Report, these sites don’t have mastheads. When they allow contact at all, it’s through blind submission forms—not always in English—or generic email addresses. Most also use third-party services to mask the identity of the domain owner. Despite attempting to reach out to dozens of sites, I got only two replies. One was from Empire Sports News's Aaron Smith, who said he was “possibly” willing to talk, but went silent at the first mention of ad revenue. Barkeley, of The Daily Currant, responded to my request for an interview with a brief email that read, “You’re more than welcome to do a takedown piece on our website. But you’ll have to do it without help. Good luck.” He ignored my follow-ups.



But the biggest mystery isn’t the identity of the conmen—it’s how much they're hauling in. Barkeley told Slate that his humor provides him with a “tight but livable” income. A number of publically available valuation services, which are by no means precise, estimate that The Daily Currant brings in anywhere from mid-five figures to $130,000 dollars a year on ad revenue alone. Finkelstein, the SEO expert, says even those numbers may be low, as they doesn't include revenue derived from short-term revenue bumps when a story goes viral. “I would estimate their yearly revenue from display advertising at about $100,000–$150,000 a year,” he said, noting that even with his expertise and access to estimation tools, it's not an exact science. “It isn’t perfect, but it is close. But at most, over the few years they’ve existed, The Daily Currant may have made as much as $500,000 in revenue—split between two people who are hardly doing any work.”



The Daily Currant is likely the king of this particular con. But others may be catching up. The same public revenue calculators place Mediamass’s annual ad revenue alone at just under $40,000; Huzzlers' is rapidly approaching $45,000. Not bad takes, especially when you consider that some of these sites don’t even bother to write their own unfunny canards: They just steal them from other sites.



The Adobo Chronicles, for example, is a seemingly well-intentioned, relatively ad-free satirical site. Its sole writer, Rene Astudillo, told me he donates the majority of his limited ad revenue to charity. In March, he ran a story claiming the American Psychiatric Association had classified “selfitis”—the taking of selfie photos—as a medical disorder. A solid joke: It was shared more than 10,000 times on Facebook. Less than a week later, Demyx took the article verbatim, cut the overtly comedic final paragraph, and threw it up on their ad-saturated page. They got 18,200 shares.



At first glance, stopping sites like Demyx seems simple enough: Just don't click on their stories. Without the ad impressions, the sites won't make any money. But that’s easier said than done: Fake-news sites are myriad, and many are fly-by-night operations. If we learn to recognize one, two more will take its place. But even disavowing all unknown news outlets wouldn’t eradicate the scourge. At times, these stories appear on legitimate sites through no fault of an editor. The bogus Krugman bankruptcy story made it to Breitbart via Boston.com, where it appeared in the finance section due to an automated process.



So the best we can do, having landed on a story titled “Marijuana Cures Hepatitis C, Research Shows,” is read it long enough to realize that it's not true—rather than sharing it first, without a thought. We’ll still be providing an ad impression, but at least we’ll have quarantined the infection.



Even that remedy may be asking too much of mankind. A March study by the Media Insight Project found that, as the Washington Post reported, "roughly six in 10 people acknowledge that they have done nothing more than read news headlines in the past week." A month earlier, Chartbeat CEO Tony Haile tweeted that his traffic-analytics company had "found effectively no correlation between social shares and people actually reading."



For those who have fallen for these stories, the consequent humiliation can inoculate them against making the mistake a second time. But you can’t vaccinate suckers as fast as they’re born. Unless Google and Facebook change their algorithms—or humans suddenly become less gullible, and less prone to confirmation bias—these sites will likely persist, metastasizing across the internet like a profoundly unfunny cancer.



Correction: A previous version of this article referred to NewsHounds as a satirical site. It is not. News-Hound is.

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[schwartzie]

Another satire site: Nevada Country Scooper (ncscooper.com)

[OmegaMan]

When Good People Share Bad Info — Here’s Why You Need To Fact Check Before You Click Share



NOVEMBER 4, 2016

By Claire Bernish



Disinformation. Misinformation. Propaganda. Outright lies. Purposeful distractions. Misleading bias. All tools of the government and close ally, corporate media, to keep the public unwise to the depth and breadth of imperialistic actions taking place around the world — and ever-encroaching surveillance and police states inside the borders of the United States.



Perhaps you have been fortunate enough to begin pulling back the curtain on the inner workings of the government — the tandem dealings by politicians, regardless of party affiliation — to exploit the public in as many ways possible for the profits of elite politicians, corporations, industries, and banks.



And what frequently starts as a trickle of paradigm-shifting new information, quickly forces open the floodgates — as the realization things aren’t at all as they hammered into your psyche for years through State-sponsored indoctrination of public education. It can be overwhelming — and you likely want to ‘wake up’ others to this reality — but there are pitfalls in doing so, marked by the same tactics the State employed to fool you in the first place.



Disinformation. Misinformation. Propaganda. Outright lies. Purposeful distractions. Misleading bias.



Sound familiar?



With the sheer amplitude and magnitude of corruption exposed on a daily basis in the lead-up to the November 8th presidential election, alerting friends and family could seem more imperative than ever — but the aforementioned traps should and must be avoided at all costs — even when it comes from outlets posing as an answer to the mainstream. Let it be noted, that is not to decry credible, consistent independent and alternative media outlets — but it’s crucial to employ critical thinking and a bit of research to separate those with integrity from the mendacious and misleading.



Spreading misinformation, false reports, and surreptitious propaganda does nothing to further the cause of truth — and, in fact, serves more to harm the credibility of legitimate reports in opposition to the dominant State narrative. Social media, however, has provided plenty of dry tinder for faulty info to spread like wildfire — either by the haplessly unaware, or by those with motives to ensure it quickly disseminates to cast doubt in the public mind.



But there are a number of ways to divine authentic, genuine information from that meant to distract, divide, discredit, and delegitimize.



Merriam-Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary defines ‘disinformation’ as “false information deliberately and often covertly spread (as by the planting of rumors) in order to influence public opinion or obscure the truth.”



So common is disinformation, those familiar with it will destroy said item with facts before it gains traction in public forums — but rumors being rumors, sometimes take on a life of their own. Checking whether or not a new report has any basis is usually as easy as a web search for secondary reports from known credible sources parroting the same claim — indeed, one surefire clue a report might be false, or even satire, is a lack of hyperlinks to other sources.



Misinformation, on the other hand, can present a trickier issue in that it can have at least a kernel of truth at its core — but the packaging, which can include blatant lies or opinion misconstrued as fact, intends to mislead.



Political and elections polls tilt public opinion, and — when convincing — can even dissuade people from voting on candidates and issues they might otherwise deem critical. In fact, selectively cherry-picking a sampling pool — or crafting targeted questions — will dramatically and sometimes ridiculously fit results to glean a desired answer. Zero Hedge, for example, caught ABC News and the Washington Post in the act over the weekend, after their joint poll showed Hillary Clinton with a double-digit lead over Donald Trump — despite increasingly heated controversy from John Podesta’s leaked emails.



Every government on the planet employs propaganda to garner favor for policy and legislation — and more subtly to inculcate the citizenry into hollow feelings of nationalism, which serves little purpose other than fueling separation and pride based on the arbitrary geopolitical happenstance of one’s birth. Although the most cunning propaganda is virtually imperceptible, this year’s narrative of Russian aggression couldn’t be more patently obvious if it tried.



However, that’s not to say the same idea of a Russian threat hasn’t also crept into reports from supposed ‘analysts,’ as well. A number of generally credible outlets, rather than presenting analysis with open-ended outcomes, have taken the government’s cue to warn of impending nuclear war at Pres. Vladimir Putin’s behest — despite a lack of evidence to back the claim. Fearmongering, it should be noted, is a common tool of propagandists worldwide.



Outright lies and deliberate distractions go hand-in-hand when it comes to parsing truth from fiction — and an unfortunately growing number of tabloid-esque outlets peddle absurd lies as truth in the interest of getting clicks. Notably, differentiating tabloid sites from credible alternative sources can be the most difficult to the newly ‘awakening’ truth-seeker.



A fine line exists between attention-grabbing headlines topping truthful articles and head-turning captions screaming wholesale lies. Indeed, considering the populace-at-large now champions an attention span less than that of a goldfish, convincing readers to venture past the first two sentences of a legitimate article can be the most frustrating facet of the job of independent media journalist. Scammers and profit-seekers capitalize on the fact most will share a link without ever bothering to view its contents — no matter if the work constitutes so much garbage.



Although it isn’t an absolute guarantee, a wise axiom to follow stands the test of time: If it sounds too good or too absurd to be true, it probably is. If you’re still uncertain, ask someone you trust, seek a second and third and fourth source, and, above all, do a little digging — after all, the Internet puts the world at everyone’s fingertips.



Journalism is not meant to be devoid of bias — on the contrary, good journalism persuades. However, bias can be employed in the extreme, easily bordering on misinformation. A topic proffered by FOX News and MSNBC will never be reported the same way — each has clear political bias and an agenda to push. Bias doesn’t have to be quite so flagrant to be effective.



So-called political pundits are a common tool used by corporate media to subtly infuse bias by appealing to the public trust of a putative ‘expert’ in the particular topic of discussion — and pundits are usually just political or party insiders, ex-government employees, and others with a vested interest in ensuring public opinion sways in a certain direction. Also, pundits and experts nearly always receive compensation for their input.



A stellar recent example of a biased opinion presented as expert assessment came from former assistant FBI director James Kallstrom — a known devotee of presidential candidate Donald Trump — who castigated the Clintons for being a “crime family.” While that point is debatable, the fact Kallstrom appeared as a former official of the government connoted insider knowledge — an appeal to his ostensible authority — and his diatribe went viral nearly immediately for its incendiary nature. It isn’t so much that his opinion didn’t deserve to be shared, but that it needed to be considered in light of his political desires — his characterization of the Clintons directly feeds Kallstrom’s desire for Trump to win the White House.



While each of these topics could and have filled tomes, hopefully this provides a gentle reminder to be wary of believing everything you read. As any journalist worth their salt will say, if you don’t believe what’s written, research it on your own. Follow links provided. Seek new information. Open your mind to new ideas and be willing to part with indoctrinated thoughts that no longer serve you.



But don’t be fooled — and it behooves all of us not to spread the sort of faulty information that discredits the general movement to expose the government’s innumerable lies.



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[schwartzie]

Here's another list. Before you post a story from a site that's questionable, just come to this thread, hit CTRL+F on your computer, enter the name of the site, and it should come up here if it's fake - at least until new ones are added.  


Web Sites Which Publish Fake News and Other Hoaxes



A small group of morally-challenged individuals have discovered that there is a great deal of money to be made by publishing fake news articles. These rags publish ridiculous headlines like “Monsanto is Killing Your Children”, “Ukrainians Worship the Devil”, and “Hillary Clinton’s Secret Affair with Vladimir Putin”. These inflammatory headlines are then promoted though social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. The owners of these sites make money from ads that display on their sites when people read the articles. It appears that the more inflammatory and unbelievable the headline, the better it spreads through social media. Debunking these stories can be almost impossible, as the “facts” they contain are unverifiable and therefore unfalsifiable. Although there is no evidence that Hillary Clinton is having an affair with Vladimir Putin, there is also not evidence that she is not having an affair with Vladimir Putin.


A few of these web sites may be run by truly insane people who actually believe what they publish, but if so that is a small minority. One of the proofs of this is how obviously fake the articles are. Old and heavily debunked articles from several years age are routinely updated with new dates and names and republished as new stories. Some site owners may believe that they are trying to shift public opinion by convincing the public to believe outrageous lies. Followers of this Overton Window theory believe that by making wildly unbelievable and bombastic claims, their slightly less unbelievable claims will feel more acceptable to readers. While this certainly may be true, that does not make it a morally acceptable strategy for discussing public policy. Other site owners may feel that they are simply “talking to their base” and that this relieves them of any moral duty to tell the truth. This is a reflection of the sad state of moral thinking in our society today. A few sites claim to be “humor” or “satire” sites and exist mainly to provide links which people can use to fool unsuspecting victims on social media. These sites will sometimes post a disclaimer in the site footer, but often these disclaimers will disappear and reappear over time. A small number of sites on our list are simply government-funded propaganda sites which post ridiculous claims from tyrannical governments which want to improve their public image or attack the public images of their opponents.

The sites on the list below are a mix of all of these types of sites. Strict categorization is not simple as many of these sites exist in multiple categories or switch between categories based upon whatever proves to be most profitable at the current time.


21StCenturyWire.com

800WhistleBlower.com

ActivistPost.com

Alternet.org

AmericanNews.com

AntiWar.com

BeforeItsNews.com

BigPZone.com

Chronicle.su

ConsciousLifeNews.com

ConspiracyWire.com

CountdownToZeroTime.com

CounterPsyOps.com

DailyBuzzLive.com

DailyCurrant.com

DCClothesLine.com

Disclose.tv

DuffelBlog.com

DuhProgressive.com

EliteReaders.com

EmpireNews.net

English.ruvr.ru

EUTimes.net

FederalistPress.com

FreePatriot.org

FromTheTrenchesWorldReport.com

GeoEngineeringWatch.org

GlobalResearch.ca

GonzoGlobe.com

GovtSlaves.info

GuardianLV.com

GulagBound.com

HangTheBankers.com

HealthImpactNews.com

HumansAreFree.com

Huzlers.com

InfoWars.com

IntelliHub.com

LewRockwell.com

LibertyNews.com

LiveFreeLiveNatural.com

NationalReport.net

NaturalCuresNotMedicine.com

NaturalNews.com

Newswire-24.com

NoDisinfo.com

NotAllowedTo.com

Now8News.com

NowTheEndBegins.com

PakAlertPress.com

PoliticalBlindSpot.com

PressTV.ir

PrisonPlanet.com

RandPaulReview.com

RawForBeauty.com

RealFarmacy.com

RedFlagNews.com

ResponsibleTechnology.org

RT.com

SecretsOfTheFed.com

SouthWeb.org

TheCommonSenseShow.com

TheControversialFiles.net

TheDailySheeple.com

TheFreeThoughtProject

TheLastGreatStand.com

TheNewAmerican.com

TheRacketReport.com

TheRightPlanet.com

TheRunDownLive.com

TheUSPatriot.com

TopInfoPost.com

TruthAndAction.org

TruthBroadcastNetwork.com

TurnerRadioNetwork.com

UndergroundHealth.com

USAHitman.com

VeteransToday.com

WesternJournalism.com

WhyDontYouTryThis.com

WorldNewsDailyReport.com

WorldTruth.tv

YourNewsWire.com


Each of these sites may, at times, publish legitimate news articles. This is a useful technique for making the illegitimate articles harder to spot. The fact that a home burglar doesn’t rob houses three nights a week does not make him any less of a home burglar. The fact that some of these sites occasionally posts a legitimate article does not make the publication itself legitimate. Any news site will occasionally publish a poorly-researched article. To earn a spot on this list, the publication must show a clear disregard for the objective truth. We all know how terribly mainstream media outlets like ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN fail to promote legitimate news stories. The promise of alternative media is that we can do better than traditional centralized mass-media. The publishers listed above are purposefully failing to do better. They are actually doing a worse job than the mainstream media — something many of us once thought impossible.

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[PurplePuppy]

Wikipedia has a list that includes some sites not listed here. It doesn't cut and paste, so please check the link. I assume they'll keep updating it as new sites arise. 


Fake News Sites

[schwartzie]

Real or Satire?


Copy and paste any article URL at the site below. They'll tell you if it's real.



realorsatire.com/

[schwartzie]

Here are all the ‘fake news’ sites to watch out for on Facebook

It’s a minefield out there, folks.


Fake news is unavoidable.



While the idea of “fake news” was born out of the very real instances of fake news stories helping sway the election in favor of now-President Donald Trump, it has since been co-opted by Trump’s administration to be used as a weapon to sow doubt in legitimate media stories that they find unappealing.


But real fake news—not the kind Trump likes to point out on Twitter virtually every day—is pervasive. And if you care about reading truthful stories, you need to be on high alert.



Facebook, a primary driver of traffic to publications, came under fire late last year for allowing the promotion of fake news sites that deal in conspiracy theories rather than facts. Some Facebook employees even reportedly revolted and took matters into their own hands before the company took steps to reduce fake news.



Both Facebook and Google have responded by cutting these sites out of their advertising networks and otherwise making their stories harder to find. And PolitiFact, a Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking site, has launched a new section devoted to fake news.


But fake news sites are still out there, and someone on your Facebook friend’s list is probably sharing one of their stories right now. If you want to check out whether a story is from a dubious source yourself, you can use one of these three Google Chrome plugins to check.



Late last year, Melissa Zimdars, a media professor at Merrimack College in Massachusetts, compiled a list of “fake, false, or regularly misleading websites” that purposefully publish fake information or are otherwise entirely unreliable. The list, which was temporarily removed due to threats and harassment Zimdars says she received, also included sites that “may circulate misleading and/or potentially unreliable information” or “sometimes use clickbait-y headlines and social media descriptions.”



Of course, “real news” media outlets and journalists sometimes make mistakes, including us at the Daily Dot. And when we do, we issue corrections and take responsibility for those mistakes. Fake news sites make no such efforts toward accuracy and often invent entirely fictional stories, which is what puts them in a different category. Further, some fake news sites—particularly government-controlled media outlets—mostly publish factual news but mix in some fake stories for propaganda purposes.



Below, we’ve compiled a list of 176 sites that Zimdars and the other researchers who created the list rank as straight-up “fake news.” The full list, which is hundreds of sites long, also includes “clickbait” sites, publications with heavy bias, satire, publications that promote “hate,” “conspiracy,” or “junk science, ”and those that specialize in rumors or unreliable information. To see the full list, click here.



Next time you see a headline that just feels off, come back here and check if it’s from one of these popular fake news websites.



Fake news sites





1. 70news.wordpress.com



2. 82.221.129.208



3. Abcnews.com.co



4. Alternativemediasyndicate.com


5. Americannews.com



6. Americanoverlook.com



7. Americanreviewer.com



8. Bighairynews.com



9. Bostonleader.com



10. Cap-news.com



11. Cbsnews.com.co



12. Channel-7-news.com



13. Cityworldnews.com



14. Civictribune.com



15. Clashdaily.com



16. Conservativebyte.com



17. Conservativedailypost.com



18. Conservativefighters.com



19. Conservativeinfidel.com



20. Dailybuzzlive.com



21. Dailyheadlines.com



22. Dailyheadlines.net



23. Dcgazette.com



24. DeadlyClear.wordpress.com



25. Denverguardian.com



26. Departed.co



27. Donaldtrumpnews.co



28. Drudgereport.com.co



29. Enabon.com



30. Enduringvision.com



31. FarmWars.info



32. Freedomdaily.com



33. Goneleft.com



34. Gopthedailydose.com



35. healthycareandbeauty.com



36. Healthyworldhouse.com



37. Immediatesafety.org



38. Infostormer.com



49. Interestingdailynews.com



40. Intrendtoday.com



41. Investmentwatchblog.com



42. Itaglive.com



43. ItMakesSenseBlog.com



44. Iwanttoexplore.com



45. Jewsnews.co.il



46. Konkonsagh.biz



47. Krbcnews.com



48. Ky12news.com



49. Ladylibertynews.com



50. Lastdeplorables.com



51. Learnprogress.org



52. Liberalplug.com



53. Libertyalliance.com



54. Local31news.com



55. Madworldnews.com



56. Maganews.co



57. Majorthoughts.com



58. Mediamass.net



59. Megynkelly.us



60. Mentor2day.com



61. Metropolitanworlds.com



62. Mpidailymagazine.com



63. Myfreshnews.com



64. Myzonetoday.com



65. Yourfunpage.com



66. Natives-today.com


67. Nbc.com.co



68. nephef.com



69. newpoliticstoday.com



70. news4ktla.com



71. newsbbc.net



72. newsbreakshere.com



73. newsbysquad.com



74. newsdaily12.com



75. newsfrompolitics.com



76. newsleak.co


77. newslo.com



78. newsmagazine.com



79. newswatch28.com



80. newswatch33.com



81. notallowedto.com



82. now8news.com



83. onepoliticalplaza.com



84. openmagazines.com



85. pakalertpress.com



86. pamelageller.com



87. politicalo.com



88. politicalsitenews.com



89. politicono.com



90. politicsusanews.com



91. president45donaldtrump.com



92. prntly.com



93. proamericanews.com



94. react365.com



95. readconservatives.news



96. reagancoalition.com



97. realnewsrightnow.com



98. redcountry.us



99. redrocktribune.com



100. religionmind.com



101. rogue-nation3.com



102. rumorjournal.com



103. socialeverythings.com



104. sputniknews.com



105. stormcloudsgathering.com



106. success-street.com



107. TDTalliance.com



108. teaparty.org



109. the-insider.co



110. thebigriddle.com



111. thecontroversialfiles.net



112. thefreepatriot.org



113. theinternetpost.net



114. themoralofthestory.us



115. thenet24h.com



116. thenewyorkevening.com



117. theracketreport.com



118. thereporterz.com



119. thetrumpmedia.com



120. theusa-news.com



121. thewashingtonpress.com



122. threepercenternation.com



123. times.com.mx



124. tmzworldnews.com



125. trueamericans.me



126. truetrumpers.com



127. trumpvision365.com



128. undergroundnewsreport.com



129. undergroundworldnews.com



130. unitedmediapublishing.com



131. universepolitics.com



132. usa-radio.com



133. usa-television.com



134. usa2016elections.com



135. usadailyinfo.com



136. usadailypolitics.com



137. usadailytime.com



138. usadosenews.com



139. usafirstinformation.com



140. usainfobox.com



141. usamagazinestudio.com



142. usanewsinsider.com



143. usanewspolitics.com



144. usanewstoday.com



145. usaphase.com



146. usapolitics24hrs.com



147. usapoliticsnow.com



148. usapoliticszone.com



149. usasnich.com



150. usasupreme.com



151. usatoday.com.co



152. usatodaynews.me



153. usatwentyfour.com



154. USAWatchdog.com



155. usconservativetoday.com



156. ushealthyadvisor.com



157. ushealthylife.com



158. usherald.com



159. usinfonews.com



160. uspoln.com



161. uspostman.com



162. usviewer.com



163. vigilantcitizen.com



164. viralactions.com



165. viralliberty.com



166. voxtribune.com



167. washingtonfed.com



168. washingtonpost.com.co



169. webdaily.com



170. weeklyworldnews.com



171. worldpoliticsnow.com



172. worldpoliticsus.com



173. worldrumor.com



174. worldstoriestoday.com



175. yesimright.com



Editor’s note: This story is regularly updated with new information. Websites that no longer fit the criteria of “fake news” will be removed. If you notice a site on the list is no longer active or no longer qualifies, please email us at [e-mail] or tweet at us at @dotlayer8.



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[PrisonerOfHope]

Since Natural News published a totally sensationalist and bogus story about mandatory Covid checkpoints in Hawaii and embellished the story with warnings of concentration camps for those who resist the vaccine, their news stories are no longer permitted here, unless they've been vetted and have other other sources which back them up.  Frankly, it's better you use the other sources.  

I asked some friends in Hawaii about the story, and they - including one whose twin sister works for the Honolulu police department - have said that yes, there are checkpoints, but they're completely voluntary.  

Natural News is a good source for advice on health, supplements, diet, etc., but his "news" stories are full of hype and false information. Avoid!