While fake news from fake websites that look like they might be real is a problem, as is the rise of “news entertainment” along the Fox model, far more troubling is the lowering of journalistic standards at outlets usually thought of as “respectable”. From the Washington Post’s “Prop or Not” debacle to Slate’s nonsensical story about Trump’s supposed secret server for communicating with the Russkies to the sloppy reporting by Time about the MLK bust at the White House, it seems there are no reliable sources of news left.
The Tiny Train World incident at the Guardian seems such a beautiful example of the problem that from now on I’m going to use that phrase as a name for this new reality. Twitter user Pixelated Boat (@pixelatedboat), whose schtick is ridiculous fake news (e.g., the new Star Wars movie will be called “The Space boys Are Back In Space Town”) posted a silly and obviously made-up quote from 1984 under the note, “This passage from Orwell’s 1984 perfectly predicted the Trump era”:
“Facts matter more than anything,” insisted Winston. “Facts are worth more than all the tea in China. Why, l’d rather have some facts than than a house made of solid gold.”
Big Brother smirked. “Facts are whatever I say they are. For example: trains are small. Really small. You could fit a train in the palm of your hand.”
“That’s not true,” sputtered Winston. “I was on a train just yesterday. It was the biggest damned thing I‘d ever seen.”
“No!” boomed Big Brother. “It was small! Welcome to Tiny Train World, Winston. Enjoy not being able to catch a train anymore on account of they’re too small, you idiot!”
Anyone can see that’s a made up quote…anyone, that is, except Brigid Delaney, a writer at The Guardian’s “Comment Is Free” sub-site. At the end of a piece about housing prices in Sydney, Australia, Delaney wrote a side note:
If 2016 belonged to Yeats [and “The Second Coming”‘s lines about “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold”], then 2017 belongs to George Orwell. Sales of 1984 have surged since the inauguration and Kellyanne Conway’s use of the phrase “alternative facts”.
Which is a fair enough observation. But in the midst of a complaint about disrespect for facts, Delaney — and The Guardian’s editors — then displayed their own disregard of facts by quoting Pixelated Boat’s version of Orwell.
Now, if this had happened in the old days of dead tree media, I could prove this misquote happened by tracking down a paper or microfilm a copy of the newspaper in question in a library, and rest my faith on the integrity of that library. But in the digital age, all that’s on the record is a note on the story that “This article was amended on 26 January 2017 to replace an incorrect quote from Nineteen Eighty-Four.”
When Pixelated Boat — a known dealer in fake news — says The Guardian swallowed a bit he didn’t even intend as bait, and even provides a screenshot, how do we know it’s true? Maybe some other, less ridiculous incorrect quote was there, and Pixelated Boat is yanking our chain.
That’s part of Tiny Train World: every story is subject to change, with past versions being stuffed down the Memory Hole at the click of a mouse.
In this case the original ended up being preserved at MSN news — at least, it was preserved there for a while, long enough for me to see it. But The Guardian’s edit has now propagated there.
So you’ll have to take the word of a guy who wears a purple tophat in his profile photo as to what happened.
Welcome to Tiny Train World.
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