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From Headline to Photograph, a Fake News Masterpiece
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of New York Times
Posted: February 13th, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/us/fake-news-hillary-clin...
[Cameron] Harris started by crafting the headline: BREAKING: Tens of thousands of fraudulent Clinton votes found in Ohio warehouse. In a raucous election year defined by made-up stories, Mr. Harris ... and his ersatz-news website, ChristianTimesNewspaper.com, make for an illuminating tale. Contacted by a reporter who had discovered an electronic clue that revealed his secret authorship of ChristianTimesNewspaper.com, he was wary at first. This topic is rather sensitive, Mr. Harris said, noting that he was trying to build a political consulting business. But eventually he agreed to tell the story of his foray into fake news, a very part-time gig that ... paid him about $1,000 an hour in web advertising revenue. He seemed to regard his experience with a combination of guilt about having spread falsehoods and pride at doing it so skillfully. He pushed the button and the story was launched on Sept. 30, blazing across the web like some kind of counterfeit comet. Even before I posted it, I knew it would take off, Mr. Harris recalled. He was correct. The ballot box story, promoted by a half-dozen Facebook pages Mr. Harris had created for the purpose, flew around the web, fueled by indignant comments from people who were certain that Mrs. Clinton was going to cheat Mr. Trump of victory and who welcomed the proof. It was eventually shared with six million people. The money, not the politics, was the point, he insisted. Mr. Harris said he would have been willing to promote Mrs. Clinton and smear Mr. Trump had those tactics been lucrative.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on elections corruption and the manipulation of public perception.
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