I’m Sick Of People Who Say “Fake News”

Rob Janicke
3 min readJan 19, 2021
Photo by Ayo Ogunseinde on Unsplash

When did so many adults become selfish, take my ball I’m going home, kick and scream when I don’t get or hear what I want, closed-minded children?

I don’t care what your political affiliations are, and you shouldn’t care about mine. Your favorite color can be red or blue, you can be colorblind or you can change colors as often as you’d like. You’re free to worship any God, several Gods, or believe in no Gods at all. None of that matters.

What matters though is the ability to not only understand what a fact is, but also comprehend that no matter how strong your belief in something may be, that belief will never change a fact.

There are no alternate facts, there is no fake news!

I worked in media (TV, radio, and advertising) for many years. People do lie and organizations do slant and mold information. This is done for one reason and one reason only…money! The more eyes and ears on something, the larger buckets of money advertisers pour into those organizations.

When conservative outlets get big, liberal ones pop up. When the liberal ones do well, the conservative news landscape ups its game. That’s what it is folks, a game. They don’t care one bit about what you like or which party you root for. Make no mistake, rooting for parties, politicians, and candidates is exactly what many people. Do you for one second believe the networks don’t know this? They have departments and focus groups specifically to take advantage of it.

“From an evolutionary standpoint, loyalty to our group, our tribe, was fundamental to our survival. Changing political views, in effect, means changing tribes. It is very difficult to convince people to leave their tribe because, historically, that often meant death. Rather than seeing “truth,” we distort reality in a way that allows us to maintain tribal loyalty.” — Psychology Today

WE DISTORT REALITY IN A WAY THAT ALLOWS US TO MAINTAIN TRIBAL LOYALTY!!!

Read that again…PLEASE!

The fact that the term “fake news” even became a thing is astonishing to me. When cult figures say things I realize that sometimes people listen, but c’mon, have some self-respect. Adults shouldn’t act like this…

Rob Janicke

Former indie record label owner currently writing my first book, SLACKER - 1991, Teen Spirit Angst and the Generation It Created.