Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Stop Falling For It
If you don’t live on Twitter, you likely missed the outrage of the hour yesterday. It started with this tweet, authoritatively asserting “USCIS confirms…”
USCIS confirms: As of October 29, children born to U.S. service members outside of the U.S. will no longer be automatically considered citizens.
Their parents will have to apply for citizenship on their behalf. https://t.co/beDHdMgqSM
— Haley Britzky (@halbritz) August 28, 2019
Upon reading it my initial impression was “hm, that sounds utterly ridiculous. Too ridiculous, in fact, to be believed. Instead of reposting the tweet with an outraged “WHAT?” I think I’ll sit back and wait for a few hours to hear the whole story. And as with other outrages involving this administration, the story unraveled long before my self-imposed wait of “few hours” was over.
Regarding USCIS #citizenship policy, State Department confirms changes will NOT impact the way the majority of Americans serving abroad get US citizenship for kids born during tours/deployment. Most use a consular process that has stayed the same: https://t.co/szKbHy4iNX
— Christina Ruffini (@EenaRuffini) August 28, 2019
Correction: Experts who have looked at new USCIS policy say it applies if a service member adopts a child overseas, but children born to service members on deployment would still automatically get citizenship. I deleted tweets with the incorrect info. https://t.co/xeu8I3zrkJ
— Ken Dilanian (@KenDilanianNBC) August 28, 2019
What is astounding is the number of people who tweeted the initial story with blind faith. It makes me wonder: at what point will critical thinking skills take over? If a story is too outrageous to be believed, it is likely too outrageous to believe.
The relatively minor incident reminded me of a story an acquaintance told me last year. He was a guest at an opioid listening session and workshop; a day-long look at the crisis at the White House with administration officials. The President was there for part of the day, and according to the attendee (far from a Trump supporter), meaningful conversations, stories, and possible solutions were discussed. Towards the end of the day, the President made a clumsy statement in the course of his concluding remarks. The pens and fingers over keyboards went flying; the press who had been present all day found their narrative. In the reporting about the day, that one clumsy statement, stripped of all context, was what led the news for the next few hours.
Gabriel Malor noted on Twitter even more lapses in the reporting on just this story and quipped “Don’t forget to pay for journalism folks. It’s important.”
Published in General
It’s getting weirder and creepier out there on the Internet. Worthless “news” organizations saying anything that will get clicks to their advertisers. I must admit they are good at getting my attention. Just not my click-through.
Maybe we are reaching a lunacy apex of some sort and the general public will stop clicking and believing. It’s gotten so ridiculous.
Another day, another fake news story. A day with no fake news would be newsworthy.
The old saw is true. If Trump walked on water the story would be “Trump can’t swim”
And they wonder why we nod along when the president calls them the “enemy of the people.”
Bethany,
If facts don’t matter only the narrative matters, then what kind of critical reasoning can take place? Propagandists aren’t reasoning about reality they are writing fiction and forgetting to mention that it’s fiction to the reader. Some are doing this consciously and are malevolent. Some are just that stupid. As this becomes more and more socially acceptable a general laziness sets in that simply blindly accepts whatever is the blurb de jour.
Regards,
Jim
I saw that tweet and I thought it was insane. But… I also couldn’t entirely put it past Trump to do something like that. At the same time, I was a little skeptical because it seemed so petty and unnecessary I decided to wait before being “outraged.” Glad I did. A lot of people on twitter doing journalism just aren’t that good at the most basic part of the job– writing/speaking about what happened. Which is a shame, since good reporting is actually valuable.
Guys, we need to remember what Comrade Ocasio-Cortez told us to think:
“It’s more important to be morally correct than factually correct.”
It makes no sense as a first step in removing birth-right citizenship for a veteran and military friendly president to go after that.
That the first story we get on the subject about our “immigration restrictive” president wasn’t revoking birth right citizenship for children born to foreign tourists should be a giant red flag of FAKE.
People could just wait an hour . . . or simply get off Twitter. Just sayin’. . .
While the golden age of journalism was probably plenty tarnished at the time, belief in a mythological golden age is the touchstone that allows for ethics in one’s own supposedly messier time.
These ethics are not those ethics.
That someone can post such stuff with Twitter’s blue checkmark and CBS’s brand name reveals these standards to be hollow indeed.
Twitter is full of nonsense, but when it comes from so-called journalists . . .
JamesS,
A statement stunning in its simplicity and its stupidity.
Regards,
Jim
Ethics? What ethics ?
All I can say is…… really?!?!
Journalists are self-identified. Journalism is not a profession. There are no credentials because there is no authorizing organization. If I say I am a journalist, then I am.
The Babylon Bee is a little more trustworthy than many “news” organizations. Just saying. (If the Weekly World News was still around, it would be head and shoulders above many Twitter Blue Checks.)
Indeed. Someone needs to re-read the title of the post.
Yes… that congresswoman satire was more honest than the snopes article debunking it.
Somehow, Snopes managed to make the actual story of the congresswoman being nasty to an equally nasty Democrat at a grocery store a fake story in many minds.
It isn’t just the Satire that is fake, but the actual event that took place that is fake.
I wonder how much of that reaction is due to the non-stop fake news constantly smearing him both actively and passively as some evil non-person deserving of “resistance” and much more.
Only a little?
The willingness to entertain leftist propaganda is emblematic of the problem. The Left has won such complete control of the narrative that such lies are taken seriously by the denizens of a ‘center right’ site. Because Orange Man Bad, I suppose.
I think “orange man bad” on center right follows the trust in the media institutions.
I’ve noticed that the most ardent on that side of the divide still maintain the highest trust in traditional media sources.