Meaning
In its dominant modern sense, fabricated or deliberately misleading stories dressed up as news reporting, originally spread via social media for advertising money or political effect. In a rival sense that grew from 2017, a political insult aimed at accurate reporting in order to discredit it. The two senses now compete, which is why editors and researchers increasingly avoid the label. Heavily politicised and contested; in careful writing it is being replaced by terms like misinformation and disinformation. Regional use: General English worldwide.
Origin
The wording is old: Wikipedia dates it to the 1890s, the era of sensational yellow journalism, and a 1915 New York Times subheading already read 'Fake News Condemned', though historians note the phrase was never in steady use. Its modern career began with the 2016 US election, when fabricated stories, many engineered for ad revenue, out-engaged real reporting on Facebook; PolitiFact named it 2016 Lie of the Year. Donald Trump then turned it into a weapon against unfavourable coverage, and historian Sarah Churchwell credits him with truly popularising the term. Collins named it 2017 Word of the Year after corpus usage rose 365 percent, defining it as false, often sensational information disseminated under the guise of news reporting. By late 2018 the UK government had stopped using the term as poorly defined, and many journalists followed.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- fake news media
Usage Examples
- The story about the candidate's endorsement was pure fake news, cooked up for ad clicks.
- Researchers traced the fake news site to a cluster of anonymously registered domains.
- Labelling every inconvenient report fake news corrodes trust in real journalism.