hoaxes — and social media’s unthinking participation in spreading all of that — facts and truth get lost in the noise. A responsible media needs to be especially careful not to unwittingly spread lies by amplifying them. Some early coverage of Trump’s recent unwarranted, evidence-free blasts about the illegality of some of the popular vote fell into that trap. It’s depressing but a fact of life that a lot of people don’t know the difference between fake news and conspiracy bilge and verified fact. Nor do they seem to care." - Meaning and context.">
QuotesCosmos
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In the wacky new world of fake news, conspiracy theories, hoaxes — and social media’s unthinking participation in spreading all of that — facts and truth get lost in the noise. A responsible media needs to be especially careful not to unwittingly spread lies by amplifying them. Some early coverage of Trump’s recent unwarranted, evidence-free blasts about the illegality of some of the popular vote fell into that trap. It’s depressing but a fact of life that a lot of people don’t know the difference between fake news and conspiracy bilge and verified fact. Nor do they seem to care.

— Margaret Sullivan (journalist)

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "In the wacky new world of fake news, conspiracy theories, hoaxes — and social media’s unthinking participation in spreading all of that — facts and truth get lost in the noise. A responsible media needs to be especially careful not to unwittingly spread lies by amplifying them. Some early coverage of Trump’s recent unwarranted, evidence-free blasts about the illegality of some of the popular vote fell into that trap. It’s depressing but a fact of life that a lot of people don’t know the difference between fake news and conspiracy bilge and verified fact. Nor do they seem to care." in the context of "" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app

Tags

#Margaret Sullivan (journalist)#conspiracy#fake#news#fact#participation#evidencefree#responsible#unwittingly#unwarranted#unthinking#especially
Margaret Sullivan (journalist)

About Margaret Sullivan (journalist)

Margaret M. Sullivan is an American journalist. She is a former Public Editor of The New York Times, serving as the "readers' representative" and reporting directly to Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. She was the newspaper's fifth Public Editor, or ombudsman, after Daniel Okrent, Byron Calame, Clark Hoyt, and Arthur S. Brisbane, and was the first woman to hold the post. She began her tenure on September 1, 2012. She then became the media columnist for The Washington Post for six years, with her column running from May 22, 2016 to August 21, 2022. Since January 2023, she has written a weekly media and politics column for The Guardians US website. Earlier in her career she worked for The Buffalo News, where she was editor and vice-president.