The "News" and People's Personal Axe-Grinding

We often talk about "fake news" these days, but sometimes I can't help but wonder about how much of this stuff isn't really related to something we might actually describe as "news," but instead is merely a manipulated representation of people's personal axes they are grinding.

Earlier, I saw someone's blog post in which they were outraged about the state of roads in their city along with lengthy declarations of how "it is outrageous that this is allowed to happen!"

And then there was a photograph of a massive (a couple of meters square) pothole in some street.

Something about it seemed a little... "odd"... so I checked, and the image was — indeed — of a legitimate pothole... from six YEARS ago!

Which was quite famous because it could "eat a car," but has long since been dealt with and an entirely new roadway constructed that people have been driving on for several years already.

That pothole — which definitely WAS ridiculous — isn't news and it doesn't exist anymore, so clearly this person isn't "reporting" anything, and evidently has a personal axe to grind with city government over roads and potholes.

But posting stuff like that?

Clearly misleading and misinformation. And for someone who actually takes a couple of minutes to check, it only makes the original poster look like a shit-stirrer and an idiot... not someone with trustworthy information.

Kinda makes me wonder just how many ostensible "causes" are little more than representations of people's individual vendettas, supported primarily by "me too mobs" who simply can't be bothered to research anything but happily jump on any rage-filled bandwagon they can find.

It's a strange world in which we live!

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

DO leave me a comment — engagement matters! Communities are built because people INTERACT with each other through the content that's created! This is SOCIAL media, after all. So share your opinion, be part of the conversation! I do my best to answer all worthy comments!

Sequence: 071 — Timestamp: 2023.05.05 - 10:28 PST

All content and photos by the author unless otherwise specified — this is UNIQUE content, created expressly for this platform. This is not posted on other sites.