Nothing new about "fake news." Here's Carl Berstein writing about CIA manipulation of mainstream media forty years ago

There seems to be lots of folks in the United States of Amnesia who believe “fake news” was discovered mere months ago by the mainstream stalwarts at WaPo and NYT.

That would be fake news. Carl Bernstein (among others) was writing about the manufacture of fake news by the CIA, in collusion with mainstream outlets like WaPo and NYT, forty years ago.

How odd that the two most influential purveyors of fake news post WWII would “discover” it at this late date!

And all thanks to those hacked emails that lifted the veil on Dem Party hanky-panky in their slimy sandbagging of the Sanders’ campaign.

Putin was behind it, of course!

That’s a fake fact regurgitated endlessly by the pointy-headed pundits at both of those esteemed outlets, without ever a whiff of proof being provided. From there it ripples out endlessly to “legitimate” news sites around the world. Nobody needs to provide proof because the Times and the Post already gave these fake facts their seal of approval.

That’s why it’s more than a little scary to read that Zuckerberg and his billionaire Silicon Valley cronies are all in for saving journalism. Facebook and Google are already busying themselves in their self-appointed role as censors of the internet and guardians of truth, and Amazon boss Bezos, who does hundreds of millions in business with the CIA, already owns the Washington Post.

They are truly doing God’s work, because even W, steadfast truth-teller that he wasn’t during his eight year reign of terror (at least from the perspective of millions of common citizens in Afghanistan and Iraq) has come out as a champion of truth in media.

A free press is the very cornerstone of our democracy, dontcha know!

Yes, it’s time to push back against the fake news tsunami, and who better than Zuckerberg and Bezos to lead the charge!

What could go wrong?