TASK DEFINITION: Given a document, generate a short title of the document. The title should convey the main idea/event/topic about which the document is being written. Note that URLs in the text have been replaced with [Link].
PROBLEM: Itâs not as if fake news in America came into existence alongside the tide known as the Trump presidencyâthe hucksters  foreign propagandists  conspiracy theorists  and fabricators have always been hereâbut if ever there was a year when purposefully misleading or false stories hit their stride  2017 might have been it.  We  were told that an ISIS leader was captured at a US airport  and that Shariah law was instituted in Utah and other states. A study found that 25 million votes for Hillary Clinton were âcompletely fraudulent â and the Las Vegas massacre was carried out by antifa  or ISIS  or the Illuminati  or somehow all three. The lies went on and on  picking up where 2016âs catalogue of nonsense left off. (Remember Hillary Clintonâs child sex trafficking ring run out of a pizzeria  or Sarah Palin banning Muslims from âenteringâ her daughter? How about Alec Baldwin dying  and Trump winning the electoral vote and the popular vote?)
But now  we âre at the dawn of a fresh year  privy to the forces that seek to sow confusion and outrage. Can American society overcome the fake news phenomenon?
Wellâ¦ âThereâs probably a strong case to be made that  we  are chemically addicted to fake news â says  Amy Webb   an author and futurist who founded the Future Today Institute. âWhen youâre seeing your angers and fears and anxieties being validated externally  you get a shot of dopamine.â Thinking about the upcoming year and beyond   she  says   we  may have âa huge problem on  our  hands.â And though the propaganda is coming at  us  from all directionsâfrom Kremlin-backed misinformation campaigns and Twitter troll armies to publicity hounds and political malcontentsâfalling for it  and spreading it  is to some degree our own fault.
In the spring of 2017   Webb  wrote a piece for Mother Jones that detailed not only the manner of 21st-century fake news and the speed with which it travels  but also how we are all accomplices to its proliferation âas we click and repost without considering the storyâs source and its agenda.â  She  noted that the democratization of the internet back in the 1990s meant that âeveryone would get to participate regardless of their agendas.â Information became free and free-flowing. But  problematically  âwe didnât plan ahead as the internet matured â when consumers of information were left to contend with not only âhuman arbiters of factsâ but also code and algorithms that propel certain types of content to the fore  based on our own online behavior. Innocently sharing a cat video put out by Russia Today  a Kremlin-backed propaganda machine that elevates fringe âexpertsâ and attempts to sow distrust  means youâll see a lot more of their content in the future.
Complicating matters more is that in our politicized climate  the term fake news itself came to mean different things to different people. It had a literal meaning that  seemingly overnight  became a hashtag and an epithet to hurl at anything or anyone that one disagrees with. âIf we canât even come to some kind of convergence and talk about something as insidious and as threatening to our future as the spread of misinformationâotherwise known as fake news in the literal senseâthen donât we have sort of a catastrophically huge problem on our hands?â asks  Webb .
As someone who studies current and past trends to try to anticipate what the future may hold   Webb  likes to end these conversations with a reminder that  for however doomed things appear  âWe are not living in the middle of Westworldâthe future has not been preordained. There is something we can do in the year 2018 and beyond  and that is be smarter consumers of news.â

SOLUTION: Can American Society Overcome the Fake News Phenomenon? â Mother Jones

PROBLEM: âHe said  âYou should not run for this office ââ said  Jesse Sbaih  an immigrant from Jordan who is now a trial lawyer . This race for the House  in a district that includes a swath of suburban Las Vegas  is his first run for political office.
 Sbaih  said it happened after  he  had entered the House race.  He  met with Reid in August in a meeting room at the Paris Las Vegas Hotel.
 Sbaih  said  he  had sought the meeting in order to win Reidâs support â a key factor in Nevada  where Reid is the unquestioned power broker of Democratic politics. But Reid would not give it   Sbaih  said  and cited Sbaihâs religion as one reason why.
âI did not feel that this was an issue. They made it an issue. My campaign is about me being an American â  Sbaih  said.  He  said  he  had not faced this kind of opposition based on  his  religion before: âI just turned 40. Been in this country for 29 years. And itâs just absolutely shocking that this occurred.â
âSenator Reid did not say that â said Kristen Orthman  a spokeswoman in Reidâs Senate office. â Jesse Sbaih  is a liar and thatâs why  he  is going to lose.â
 Sbaih âs assertion could shake up one of the most competitive House races in the country â a race made possible  in a way  by Reid himself.
On the Republican side  several plausible candidates have already filed to run. On the Democratic side  however  the race was slow to start: late in the summer   Sbaih  was the best-funded and best-known candidate who had declared.
 Sbaih  is an ally of Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.)  who is running  in part  on  his  own remarkable life story.  Sbaih âs parents immigrated from Jordan to Virginia when  he  was 11  and  he  helped support the family by washing dishes in an Italian restaurant as a teen.
Now   Sbaih  said   his  run for office is a way to repay the country for the way it welcomed  his  family.
âIâve always felt: The more America gave me  the more I wanted to give back â  Sbaih  said in an interview with The Washington Post.
But   Sbaih  said   he  was rebuffed when  he  sought to gain Reidâs support.
First   he  said   he  met with a political consultant connected to Reid  Rebecca Lambe. At a coffee shop   Sbaih  said  Lambe brought up his religion and his Arab heritage: âShe said  basically  youâre gonna have a problem winning  as a Muslim  as an Arab.â
 Sbaih  said  he  did not record that meeting with Lambe  or the one  he  had with Reid a few weeks later.
To bolster  his  account   Sbaih  supplied both emails and text messages from the time  in which  he  tells another Reid ally that  he  is âprofoundly disheartened and saddened that the Democratic Party is refusing to accept a candidate like  me  because of my religion and ethnicity.â
In the exchanges of text message and emails provided by Sbaih  however  Reidâs allies do not say explicitly that  Sbaih âs race or religion is a hindrance  nor do they confirm that Reid himself had said so.
Orthman  Reidâs spokeswoman  said that Reid had told  Sbaih   he  should run for another office â instead of jumping straight into a highly competitive House race.

SOLUTION: Nev. candidate says Reid urged him to quit because âa Muslim cannot win this race.â

PROBLEM: Story highlights  Channing Tatum  announced on social media that  he  will be pulling a film project that was in the works with The Weinstein Company
Tatum was set to make  his  directorial debut based on the book "Forgive Me  Leonard Peacock " by Matthew Quick
(CNN)  Channing Tatum  is stepping down from a film project  he  had in development with The Weinstein Company.
 The actor  was set to make  his  directorial debut alongside Reid Carolin in "Forgive Me  Leonard Peacock " based on the book by Matthew Quick.
 Tatum  made the announcement Wednesday on  his  social media accounts.

SOLUTION:
Channing Tatum pulls Weinstein film project