I rarely watch the news, but I saw this piece on Channel 4 last night (may be limited to UK), about how teens in Macedonia have been running 'news' sites that recycle stories from 'radical' and possibly satirical sites, mainly about the US election. They managed to get hundreds of thousands of Facebook followers and have been raking in lots of money from the associated advertising.
Reporters have tracked these sites back to the small town of Veles where they talked to several shifty looking young men who didn't want to admit what they were doing. It seems they didn't care about the politics, but found that stories favouring Trump got the best results. More on it at Buzzfeed.
They mentioned the 'pizzagate' story as one that had been hyped in this way.
Do people really distrust journalists this much? We know they generally have some bias, but if you know what that is then you take it into account. I read The Guardian and I know they are a left-leaning paper, so they won't favour the current UK government. I won't read most UK tabloids that are pure trash in my (biased) opinion.
I don't believe 'the media' is all involved in some big conspiracy. When something big goes wrong I often suspect incompetence before malice.
We live in a crazy world, so be careful about what sources you trust. But should you trust me?
