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Jul 2018
"Fake news, fake news!"
The boy cried fake news every time a story
failed to paint him in the most positive possible light,
neglected to deify him in the most sunny way.
He denounced, decried and denigrated
reporters who would check with two more sources
if their moms claimed to love them
the way their ink-stained forebears did.
He attempted to discredit truth-seekers
who actually had stricter codes of ethics than doctors,
cops, actuaries,  
any profession really.

The callow boy cried fake news so much that
his most loyal followers shouted “fake news” out car windows
at TV reporters reporting on alligators that crossed the street,
fired drive-by potshots at newsrooms out of sheer lunacy.
The boy cried fake news so much
that he did protest too much, that his cries sounded fake,
that his credibility strained
against the press corps who produced
backing documents, audio recordings and multiple sources.
The boy cried fake news so much
it degenerated into cliche and ceased to mean anything at all.

The boy cried fake news at a time when the news
felt financial pressured into running clickbait articles like
“Eight Hanukkah Lessons I Learned from
Smoking a Menorah ****”
or the “12 Most *** Days of Christmas.”
Joseph S Pete
Written by
Joseph S Pete  Chicagoland
(Chicagoland)   
  393
 
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