President Trump uses the term “fake news” in his public pronouncements quite often. While he never defines it, it appears that he considers fake news to be whatever news stories or opinions that are critical of him or his policies. News and opinions that are positive to him are “real news.” There doesn’t appear to be anything like objective truth in his world view.

The question is how do you know if news is real or fake? The answer is to apply critical thinking to the problem. On the one hand, you have Trump implying that dozens of news outlets with hundreds of reporters and editors, with the exception of Fox News, are somehow conspiring together to make him look bad while keeping quiet about it. On the other hand, you have a thin-skinned narcissist who is unable to deal with the criticism that every president endures.

Of course, there is one other possibility. Leslie Stahl, the veteran reporter for CBS and “60 Minutes” interviewed Trump in his office before the Republican National Convention in 2016. She asked Trump why he continually attacked the media. His response was “You know why I do it? I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.”

For all of Trump’s whining about fake news, he’s shown that he doesn’t mind putting out his own brand of fake news on his political opponents. He retweeted an obviously phony video of Speaker Nancy Pelosi sounding like a drunk. When asked why he did it, Trump in effect used the eight-grade defense of “she started it.”

Trump has become so repetitive, incoherent and long winded in his speeches that even Fox News, his favorite media outlet, has stopped giving him full live coverage. Also, Trump has complained about Fox News giving town hall meetings to Democratic presidential hopefuls like Bernie Sanders. In addition, a couple of reporters for Fox News, Chris Wallace and Shep Smith have had the temerity not to follow the party line but to ask tough questions of Trump and his minions. To regular watchers of Fox News this is called journalism.

In the book “1984” by George Orwell, the protagonist Winston Smith has a job at the Ministry of Truth. There he looks at the historical records of what Big Brother has said or done and “corrects” them so that it appears that Big Brother never says anything false or incorrect, instead giving the impression of omnipotence. Trump has floated the idea of a government-controlled media outlet: his own Ministry of Truth. While it doesn’t exist, Trump’s “Big Brother” type of influence has already extended into the government. For example, under pressure from the White House, a park service employee photoshopped pictures of Trump’s inauguration to make it appear the crowds were larger than they really were. The White House also altered the transcript of Trump’s speech at Helsinki regarding Vladimir Putin’s interference in our elections.

For those who wish to find out the truth of a story, I recommend checking out www.politifact.org or www.factcheck.org. These are not liberal sites. They are non-partisan websites. You can look up how many times during the election Hilary Clinton said something false or misleading and compare it with Trump’s statements. That’s one area that Trump won in a landslide.

James Peca is a retired U.S. government analyst living in Farmville. He can be reached via email at Jep315@gmail.com.