I never heard of “News Right Now,” until Sean Hannity and maybe Donald Trump fell for one of the Onion wannabe’s fake news stories. That, of course, is what such sites live for—to get some prominent publication, pundit or news commentator to fall for a satirical story and get the site’s name in the real news. In this case, it was NRN’s not very funny and not completely unbelievable (for the Obama administration anyway} item titled U.S. to House 250,000 Syrian Refugees at Navajo, Standing Rock Indian Reservations.

I don’t have any sympathy for Hannity. There are fake news sites all over the web; by now journalists should be taking care that they aren’t accepting a spoof as fact, and passing it on to add more confusion and information pollution to public discourse. Using this gag story was lazy, incompetent, careless and inexcusable. Hannity let confirmation bias over come whatever common sense he has, just like my retired liberal journalist friend, who has posted on Facebook ridiculous fake stories about Republicans saying crazy things. To be fair, in a nation where a member of Congress openly worries about Guam tipping over, who knows what is too silly to be true? Continue reading →