The liberal media is having a tough time coming to grips with Hillary Clinton losing the election. Some looked inward to see how they could’ve been so wrong about the electorate. Others are blaming “fake news sites” for spreading false information and influencing voters. Facebook is taking a lot of the blame for disseminating this so-called false information. But the sources of some of this “misinformation” are really a problem for Big Media because they are conservative websites and blogs.

The Los Angeles Times published a list of “false, misleading, clickbait-y and satirical ‘news’ sources” to avoid which was compiled by Melissa Zimdars, Assistant Professor of Communication at Merrimack College in Massachusetts, according to Legal Insurrection — you know, one of those "fake" conservative sites that are simply passing along what the LA Times is publishing.

Reliable conservative outlets like The Blaze, Breitbart, James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas, and RedState all made the list. Also making the cut is The Onion, a well-known and actual fake news site. So, you can see why Zimdars wanted the conservative outlets next to The Onion.

Here are the criteria the professor used to compile the list:

CATEGORY 1: Below is a list of fake, false, or regularly misleading websites that are shared on Facebook and social media. Some of these websites may rely on “outrage” by using distorted headlines and decontextualized or dubious information in order to generate likes, shares, and profits. These websites are categorized with the number 1 next to them.

CATEGORY 2: Some websites on this list may circulate misleading and/or potentially unreliable information, and they are marked with a 2.

CATEGORY 3: Other websites on this list sometimes use clickbait-y headlines and social media descriptions, and they are marked with a 3.clickbait-y headlines and social media descriptions, and they are marked with a 3.

CATEGORY 4: Other sources on this list are purposefully fake with the intent of satire/comedy, which can offer important critical commentary on politics and society, but have the potential to be shared as actual/literal news. I’m including them here, for now, because 1.) they have the potential to perpetuate misinformation based on different audience (mis)interpretations and 2.) to make sure anyone who reads a story by The Onion, for example, understands its purpose. If you think this is unnecessary, please see Literally Unbelievable. 

Any number of those violations have been used by “credible” mainstream news outlets, many of which have been rightly exposed here at TruthRevolt and also by The Blaze and Breitbart. But the LA Times’s now-viral list is giving legitimacy to the claim that websites like ours are bogus despite that fact that we find most of our stories from and give credit to the outlets she would consider trustworthy.

Zimdars backtracked a bit when she was called out by a site on the list for her false accusations:

I will be updating the categorizations and adding links gradually through the next couple of days.

Many of the websites on this list continue to offer valuable journalism and/or satirical commentary. For example, a website included on this list wrote an overall thoughtful piece about the list, but the headline suggests that every source on this list is fake, which misrepresents the list. Finally, I do not condone plug-ins that automatically block any of the websites listed below. And as a reminder, not all of the sources listed below should be considered fake.

What the LA Times and Zimdars don’t seem to understand is that people aren’t distrusting of the media because of these “fake” news sites; it’s the blatant lies spread by the “real” ones.