Fact Check: USA Today and CNN are clickbait sites pretending to be factual news

CNN faked a protest photo in an article in 2016

The claim: USA Today and CNN are unbiased factual news sites

For some reason, despite sharing articles worthy of supermarket tabloids, or faking a protest photo to get higher article views, people continue to believe that USA Today and CNN are real news sites.

Sure, CNN has been busted several times for completely fake news coverage, and USA Today is buying up all the local newspapers across the country in an effort to generate more revenue through clickbait and profiting off tasteless minute-by-minute coverage of dead celebrities.

But after all of these years of consistently being fooled by USA Today and CNN, surely they'd be required to put some sort of disclaimer on their sites if they're not reporting factual news, right?

Newspapers and Cable News aren't required to tell the truth

News media in fact is under no obligation to present the truth when reporting news, and in fact intentionally misleads viewers/readers to get better viewership, leading to higher paying sponsors.

In fact, the news organizations only need to prevent from committing libel or slander directed towards a person or organization, and they're absolutely within the confines of the law.

In fact, the FCC has even made clear that they will only step in if the fake news is going to cause "immediate harm". Otherwise, they're powerless to force news organizations to tell the truth.

Sadly, you had to learn this from a satire site

We often joke that we're more honest than CNN or other major news outlets. This is in fact true. Unlike major news outlets, we actually tell you when our articles are satire (which is 99% of the time). Ironically, CNN has even confirmed that 75% of Americans can't identify fake news (which is probably why CNN takes advantage of this).

And by the way, all of the major news outlets fake news. They only apologize when they're actually caught.

Our Rating: False - USA Today and CNN are not factual news sites

Unlike most of our articles, this one is actually not satire.

Sharpsburg Council Approves Ordinance to Rename Town to Sharpsburgh

Sharpsburg, MD - Through a unanimous vote, the Sharpsburg town council has approved an ordinance to rename the town to its traditional spelling "Sharpsburgh". This debate was the result of questions raised regarding the legitimacy of the town museum's usage of the name "Sharpsburgh".

"It really came down to which Facebook page had the most likes at the time," said a town council representative, "and somehow overnight before the meeting the likes for the Sharpsburgh Museum exceeded the likes for the Town of Sharpsburg itself."

The town manager was unable to explain how the likes for "Sharpsburgh Museum" suddenly skyrocketed overnight, but the promised that there was not foul play involved. "This was the most secure and trustworthy counting of Facebook page likes ever. There may have been talk four years ago of Facebook likes being an unsecure method of determining which town name was preferred, but we promise you there's no way it could have been manipulated now, even though we did nothing to correct the problem."

Supporters of "Sharpsburg" questioned the official narrative of "Sharpsburgh" supporters.

"If you look at the like counting, both Sharpsburg and Sharpsburgh received over 1.5 million likes. There aren't that many people living in town, something is seriously wrong here!" said one concerned citizen.

Most of the controversy arises over a sudden spike in likes for Sharpsburgh overnight shortly before the council meeting. Sharpsburgh supporters swear unequivocally that the likes are legitimate, even though Sharpsburg supporters were prevented from observing counting of the likes.

Meanwhile, "Sharpesburg" supporters continue to cry foul, claiming they were excluded from the process. "Just because the Sharpesburg Facebook page only has five likes, doesn't mean our voices don't matter. There is no difference between Sharpsburg and Sharpsburgh. Only Sharpesburg is the true original name of the town."

The new name goes into effect on September 31, 2021.

No surfers were caught by the massive wave of political bullshit we've witnessed these past couple years. The Hagerstown Report is satire.