Co-written with H.J.

It’s no secret that formerly respectable and mainstream media outlets have become fake news purveyors. Whatever it is that drove journalists to lie and manipulate, the evidence exists to prove their intent to deceive.

Much like television commercials and print advertisements, news stories are written to sell the reader something. Many times, what the news outlets are selling is politically motivated. On almost any given topic they choose to cover, they’ve been seen to cherry pick quotes that are in line with their interests and agendas, to omit relevant information that may harm their stand on something, and to use language that falsely imputes guilt on Republicans and conservatives.

The list below includes several examples of stealthy and manipulative alterations of already published news articles by the Washington Post and CNN.

On a side note: there were countless (literally, countless) articles that had been revised or completely rewritten without public notice. It’s been done so much, you would think that this practice is perfectly “ethical.” It was actually quite comical, yet disappointing, to witness reporters announcing minor changes such as, “This article was changed to fix the last name of X person. It was misspelled in the original article,” while entire paragraphs had been added or deleted without a peep from them.

Washington Post

A peculiar feature of the WaPo coverage in newsdiffs : even when newsdiffs has many changes to an article, the “All Changes” page in newsdiffs says “Alas! We don’t seem to know anything about this article. Sorry!” Might be a bug in newsdiffs.

The Washington Post frequently changed both the content and the time of the article without stating that that an earlier version was already published.

A change of terms: “Climate change denialist information” → the broader “denialist information.”

http://newsdiffs.org/diff/1252349/1252438/https%3A/www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/09/16/deniers-club-meet-the-people-clouding-the-climate-change-debate

Some comments added on climate change.

http://newsdiffs.org/diff/1365055/1365060/https%3A/www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/03/09/on-climate-change-scott-pruitt-contradicts-the-epas-own-website

An Inflammatory sentence is added.

http://newsdiffs.org/diff/1365071/1365091/https%3A/www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/03/09/on-climate-change-scott-pruitt-contradicts-the-epas-own-website

“Ryan Zinke says ” → to “Ryan Zinke admits.” More manipulative language.

http://newsdiffs.org/diff/1337162/1337438/https%3A/www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/01/17/ryan-zinke-says-humans-influence-climate-change-scientists-say-were-the-dominant-cause

Lots of changes. A bizarre claim: “Scientists are frantically copying U.S. climate data, fearing it might vanish under Trump” is added.

http://newsdiffs.org/diff/1316913/1316931/https%3A/www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/12/13/trump-taps-montana-congressman-ryan-zinke-as-interior-secretary

More examples:

http://newsdiffs.org/diff/1314500/1314531/https%3A/www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/12/09/trump-transition-team-for-energy-department-seeks-names-of-employees-involved-in-climate-meetings

http://newsdiffs.org/diff/1313006/1313343/https%3A/www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/12/07/trump-names-scott-pruitt-oklahoma-attorney-general-suing-epa-on-climate-change-to-head-the-epa

http://newsdiffs.org/diff/1271545/1271682/https%3A/www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/10/11/al-gore-to-join-hillary-clinton-on-campaign-trail-in-florida-to-talk-about-climate-change

http://newsdiffs.org/diff/1266703/1267656/https%3A/www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/10/04/al-gore-to-campaign-for-clinton-hoping-to-galvanize-young-voters-on-climate-change

BBC

One article

More articles

Newsdiffs asserts it covers CNN. Our quick review has found no cases of stealthy alteration of published articles by CNN.