Sunday, March 26, 2017

Some Real (Fake) News...



With all we've reading about and hearing about lately is a thing called "fake news."

This kind of news story isn't a new thing at all. In fact, it was fairly common in the days of the Great Depression...namely the crash of the stock market! Exaggeration of the news, especially in newspapers, was and is a fairly common practice Here's an example...

Stock Market Crash Suicides

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Photo credit: Wikimedia
 
The Stock Market Crash of 1929 is widely credited with two things: causing the Great Depression of the 1930s and leading to a mass suicide of stock brokers. The former is still taken quite seriously, but the latter has become a bit of a dark joke. Any film set during the crash is guaranteed to include legions of distraught bankers leaping from the windows of office buildings.

But only two men leaped to their deaths on Wall Street that day. A few more killed themselves by hanging and shooting afterward, but overall, suicides were fairly rare. In fact, the suicide rate was significantly lower than the previous summer when, ironically, the market peaked. 

As is usually the case, exaggeration was to blame for this complete non-story. Newspapers billed the few actual suicides as a full-on national tragedy, claiming New York pedestrians had to “pick their way among the bodies” in the streets. And the rest was (completely nonsensical) history.

Like I said, nothing new about "fake news" other than the fact we hear so much more and much faster than ever. Still, fake news is still fake!

Coffee out on the patio again this morning.




5 comments:

Momlady said...

I only read our local paper which doesn't include national news except in elections. My dad had a good saying, "believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see." Unfortunately social media such as Facebook and Twitter make things worse. I don't watch TV news except for the weather.

JO said...

I keep thinking I'm going to wake up and find that this election was totally fake new. I only watch the news for weather and some local news but even that is horrible.

temps coming back up here I'll see you on the patio for a bit

Gorges Smythe said...

Interesting.

HermitJim said...

Hey Momlady...
That's about the same as I watch. Weather...
Thanks for stopping by today!


Hey Jo...
That's just wishful thinking, sweetie.
Thanks for dropping by!


Hey Gorges...
Glad you found it to be, sir.
Thanks for coming by today!

Dizzy-Dick said...

I agree with Momlady.