A resurrected Ben Franklin wouldn't recognize the world Abramson describes in her NYT memoir. Once past the superficial technology aspect, he'd absolutely get Twitter and blogging and newsy partisan vehicles like Daily Kos or National Review.
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He wrote under at least 14 pseudonyms (Sam Adams even more). If they were active today, they'd be anonymous Twitter accounts with huge followings that would mercilessly troll their political enemies, while issuing serious-sounding essays from slightly more respectable perches.
My favorite fact about Ben Franklin is that he created a fake issue of a real newspaper filled with completely fabricated articles about the British allegedly scalping troops etchttps://www.google.com/amp/s/stanfordreview.org/in-defense-of-fake-news/amp/ …
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Right! Our current 'fake news' moment is *exactly* what it was like during the founding of this country and for a while after. That doesn't mean it's a good thing necessarily, but to claim the end is nigh because we have a whiff of it...well, seems a bit premature.
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My favorite negative campaign was John Adams insisting his opponent Thomas Jefferson was in fact dead.
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Then they both died on the same exact day: Independence Day.
End of conversation
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