This is how so-called fake news gets started: In an article published Feb. 27 (“Oscars’ shocking end: ‘Moonlight’ wins after ‘La La Land’ named by mistake,” Page A1), Jake Coyle of the Associated Press reported that Warren Beatty read the wrong winner for best picture, when in fact Faye Dunaway was the one who read it wrong.
Beatty looked in the envelope again to see if there might be another card and then hesitated again. He handed the card to Dunaway to see, with a look on his face saying, “This is not right.” Dunaway, thinking that Beatty was milking the crowd, quickly looked at the card and, only half reading it, announced “La La Land.”
In fact, the AP article didn’t acknowledge that Faye Dunaway was even on stage as a co-presenter. So Jake Coyle’s interpretation of what happened gets spread all over the country as being a fact, when in essence, it is, to me, fake news.
Now the whole country is blaming Warren Beatty for something that he had no part in other than holding a card. This is exactly what happens in news reporting – and you wonder why President Trump gets upset at fake news!
It’s mistakes like this that make the general public doubt what they are reading. I, for one, don’t believe the news unless I see it or hear it for myself.
Roland Gagne
South Portland
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