The phrase “fake news” has lost, or more accurately been robbed of, all meaning in the past few months, so please allow me to try to sort this out by telling you what fake news is not.
Fake news is not news published without thorough research and fact-checking. That’s what we call “bad journalism.”
Fake news is not news that some readers would prefer not to have read about. That is that thing that has traditionally been called “bad news.” That is news you don’t like.
Fake news is not news that, while thoroughly researched and seemingly verified to the best of the publication’s ability, turns out to be false – because honest mistakes do get made, an unfortunate fact of life in any profession.
Fake news is not even distantly related to opinion pieces or editorials that bug you.
A story going to print, and then later evolving – “Panicked people thought they heard another shooter” becomes “No, there is just one suspect” – does not retroactively become “fake news.” In that case, it just becomes “outdated reporting.”
Conspiracy theories are also not fake news, unless your local moon-landing-was-a-hoaxer has taken to publishing his claims at theglobeandmail.com.co. This, by the way, is a classic fake-news move. It’s the old mimicking-the-url,-logo-and-even-layout-of-actual-news-outlets-and-putting-some-generally-hate-filled-fancy-up-on-that-site gambit so popular of late.
Unfortunately, in a startlingly short period of time, all these things, along with a fair amount of just standard totally true news, are increasingly being described as “fake news.”
Which brings us back to Wednesday and Mr. Trump’s accusing CNN of running fake news. Accusing CNN of doing this is a popular pastime with his supporters as well, so, while I would love to say that the term “fake news” is dead, and ask you to please consider this column its obituary, it’s not.
The term fake news lurches on. It’s alive! It proved to be so useful that it has been co-opted, not just as a means of circling the wagons around all the actual lies that the spreaders of fake news profit from, benefit from and enjoy, but also as a means of silencing legitimate journalism and criticism.
Last week, CNN wrote something true that Mr. Trump didn’t like; namely, they reported that a two-page memo – including “allegations that Russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump” – had been included in an intelligence briefing presented to Mr. Trump and President Barack Obama.
CNN’s sources included “multiple U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the briefings.” This would very much appear to be news, and CNN did not even go into detail on the specifics of the claims mentioned in the memo, let alone announce they were true.
CNN did its job, but this caused Donald Trump, the same man who built his political career claiming that President Obama, having been born in Kenya, was not a U.S. citizen, and was therefore not actually the president, to tweet, “I win an election easily, a great 'movement’ is verified, and crooked opponents try to belittle our victory with FAKE NEWS. A sorry state!”
He used the term fake news repeatedly this week. He’s like a kid with a new means of delegitimizing the free press. Or maybe not that new. You could be forgiven for feeling as if you’re watching the cultivation of a banana republic.
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