PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

I have blogged about FAKE NEWS before because, as a former media reporter and media relations official, I believe there is no consensus about what the term means.

The Washington Post’s media columnist Erik Wemple provided this example recently when he wrote about Sarah Palin and how she had fallen for an actual fake news approach.

“Now Palin knows what ‘fake news’ really is,” Wemple wrote. “It’s someone seeking an interview under false pretenses — something that the people she has labeled ‘fake news’ don’t do. It’s someone concocting storylines — something that the people she has labeled ‘fake news’ don’t do. It’s someone seeking to embarrass you — something that the people she has labeled ‘fake news’ don’t do.

“Sure — the people Trump, Palin and others label as ‘fake news’ do from time to time make mistakes, crank out false reports and otherwise reach hasty conclusions. Such moments are as inevitable in journalism as malpractice is in medicine and a blown interview is in politics. The simple reality that humans sometimes err factored into the definition of ‘fake news’ as it roared into familiarity toward the end of 2016. Back then, it designated intentionally false reports designed to accomplish a political end and to enable click-baity profit.

Yet, Trump and his flunkies debased it. ‘Fake news’ became a handy term to classify media gaffes and, eventually, stories that the White House just didn’t like. According to one study, four in 10 Republicans ‘consider accurate news stories that cast a politician or political group in a negative light always to be ‘fake news.’ ”

Wemple is right.

In my previous post on this subject, I wrote that there were four types of alleged “fake news.” 

1. THE LITERAL ONE

Fake news is distributed by many interests that, literally, make up stuff, then disseminate the material as attachments to websites, as news releases, and in other ways.

It is clearly material made up out of whole cloth, but, depending on the size of the distribution, it can affects public perceptions.

2. THE CONCOCTED ONE

This relates to what I consider to be staged events that are designed to gain publicity, either a picture on the front page of a newspaper or a few seconds on local TV news.

Examples are demonstrations in government capitols in favor of one thing or another, which are staged to gain news coverage.

3. THE “I DISAGREE WITH IT” ONE

This tends to be what Donald Trump or Sarah Palin mean when they labels something fake news. If he or she disagrees with it, then it is fake.

4. THE “CAN YOU BELIEVE IT ONE”

Here, I cite the story from Iowa a few months ago where Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley wrote an opinion piece for the Des Moines Register that led to speculation he was starting a run for president.

Can you believe it?

I cannot, so I rate the Merkley news as “fake news.”

In all of this, the best attitude is healthy skepticism. Don’t believe, at least at first blush, everything you read on social media sites, hear on the radio or see on TV. Recognize that what you read, hear and see requires a sense of perspective. Form opinions on the basis of a variety of sources rather than just one.