Denzel Washington Blasts Media for Spreading 'BS'

After “Fences” star Denzel Washington found himself at the center of a fake news story earlier this year, the actor blasted the media for selling “B.S.”

“If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you do read it, you’re misinformed,” Washington said at the Tuesday premiere of “Fences” inside the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., according to The Hill.

“In our society, now it’s just first — who cares, get it out there,” Washington added. “We don’t care who it hurts. We don’t care who we destroy. We don’t care if it’s true.”

Also Read: Media Matters Shifts Focus From Fox News to Fake News, 'Alt-Right' Sites

He continued, “Just say it, sell it. Anything you practice you’ll get good at — including B.S.”

Earlier this year, a news report claimed Washington was switching his support from Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump. Then, in November, a story from the American News’ Facebook page read that Washington praised Trump, saying, “We need more and more jobs. He has hired more employees, more people, than anyone I know in the world.”

However, the actor’s publicist told BBC News that “the story is 100 percent complete fabrication.” Snopes reported that ANews24 published the false claim back in August, lifting passages from an interview in the New York Post with civil rights activist Charles Evers.

Also Read: Denzel Washington to Receive Modern Master Award at Santa Barbara Film Festival

The 61-year-old Oscar winner added that the media has “the need to be first, not even to be true anymore.”

“So what a responsibility you all have — to tell the truth,” Washington added.

“Fences,” based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning August Wilson play of the same name, follows a black family in 1950s Pittsburgh.

Troy (Washington) is the head of the household, but is bitter about his life working as a trash collector. His son Cory (Jovan Adepo) dreams of a better life, but gets nothing but disdain from his father. Throughout it all, Troy’s wife Rose (Viola Davis) tries to hold everything together.

“Fences” will open in theaters on Dec. 25.

10 Times Donald Trump Shared Fake News (Photos)

Donald Trump is the country's most prominent spreader of fake news. Here are ten unquestionably fake news stories he has shared.
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In 2009, Trump helped create fake news when the USA Network and WWE falsely reported that Trump was planning to buy "Monday Night RAW." It turned out that it was all part of a wrestling storyline.
Trump spent years demanding that President Obama produce his birth certificate and other papers in response to false e-mails that Obama was a Kenyan-born Muslim. He finally admitted Obama was born in this country in September, then accused Hillary Clinton of starting the lies about Obama.
In December 2011, Trump said President Obama "issued a statement for Kwanza but failed to issue one for Christmas." That was provably false. (This photo is from 2014.)
Trump said in 2015 that "thousands and thousands of people were cheering" in Jersey City, N.J. when the World Trade Center fell on Sept. 11, 2011. Although some radio stations and websites reported celebrations in nearby Paterson, N.J., the city denied the reports.
In February 2016, Trump entertained conspiracy theories that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was murdered when he said he was found with "a pillow on his face." Alex Jones' InfoWars had earlier reported on suggestions Scalia was killed. But the owner of the ranch where Scalia died later clarified that he did not have a pillow over his face.
In June 2016, Trump tweeted a photo that purported to show a family of African-Americans who supported him. But they told BuzzFeed they definitely did not.
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In another case of Trump creating the fake news, he scored 22,000 retweets on Election Day by posting, "Just out according to @CNN: 'Utah officials report voting machine problems across entire country.'" But it was just one county. No R.
On Nov. 10, Trump tweeted that post-Election Day protestors were “professional,” but a professional fake-news writer, Paul Horner, admitted that he had invented a story about protesters being paid.

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After saying for months before election day that the vote would be rigged, Trump won. He subsequently said “million of people” voted illegally. A guy on Twitter who had tweeted that 3 million voted illegally declined to provide any source. Trump has continued to make baseless claims about millions of illegal voters since he took office.
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Let's give credit where its due: On Dec. 6, Trump fired one of his transition team staffers for tweeting a fake news story that led to an armed confrontation in a Washington, DC pizza restaurant. The issue became known as "pizzagate."
On his first full day in office, Trump visited the Central Intelligence Agency and claimed 1.5 million people attended his inauguration. The New York Times said that photographs "disproved" that number. Vox did a deep dive into why Trump's numbers appeared to be off. And a Texas NHL team, among others, made fun of him.
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