4 ms·

Just curious: Fake news was coined by Trump, so you're agreeing it was a meaningful usage?

stonogo 6y ago
Ironically, it was not coined by Trump. https://twitter.com/CraigSilverman/status/522179364767924224 https://twitter.com/CraigSilverman/status/522179364767924224 and https://www.theverge.com/2014/10/22/7028983/fake-news-sites-are-using-facebook-to-spread-ebola-panic https://www.theverge.com/2014/10/22/7028983/fake-news-sites-... are good examples of its use pre-Trump. By the time Trump started applying it to actual news outlets, it was already in relatively common use.
- triangleman 6y ago
  The irony runs deep in this case. The examples you point out are good ones for the term in common use through the end of 2016. Then this happened: https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/08/politics/hillary-clinton-fake-news-epidemic/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/08/politics/hillary-clinton-fake... December 2016 Hillary Clinton decides to use the term in reference to recent events like her losing the election. The media picks up on it and the term starts to lose its meaning. Then Donald Trump, always with a nose for catch phrase politics, picks up the term and runs with it, a turn of events that someone on HN called a huge "own goal" by the media, and I can't say I disagree with that assessment. For more analysis of this cultural specimen: https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-42724320 https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-42724320
- vxNsr 6y ago
  It's possible that the term existed before Hillary/Trump but your examples aren't it. In your examples the word "fake" is used as an adjective to the noun "news site". As in "a fake news site". "fake news" as it used today is a noun in its own right. As in "that's fake news" See also "alternative facts".
bawolff 6y ago
It was always dismissive. Serious people used already existing terms like propaganda or yellow journalism.
DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
It was not coined by Donald Trump[1][2]: > Author Sarah Churchwell asserts that it was Woodrow Wilson who popularized the phrase 'fake news' in 1915, although the phrase had been used in the US in the previous century. > The term actually dates from the late 19th century, when it was used by newspapers and magazines to boast about their own journalistic standards and attack those of their rivals. In 1895, for example, Electricity: A Popular Electrical Journal bragged that “we never copy fake news,” while in 1896 a writer at one San Jose, California, paper excoriated the publisher of another: “It is his habit to indulge in fake news. ... [H]e will make up news when he fails to find it.” [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_news#20th_century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_news#20th_century [2] https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/In-a-Word/2019/0726/Surprisingly-old-words-that-seem-contemporary https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/In-a-Word/2019/0726/Su...
P_I_Staker 6y ago
No, and it's total bullshit that we let him get away with re-claiming it. Originally, it was for stories that were ludicrously false and made up. It's like the stuff you see in tabloids. It was being passed around on social media as real news. Things like Obama being a secret Muslim, and not a natural born US citizen. You know the things that launched Trump's campaign.
senderista 6y ago
Wrong, it originally referred to fabricated political news stories (generally pro-Trump) circulated on social media during the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump later co-opted the term to mean any unfavorable news coverage.

Ironically, it was not coined by Trump. https://twitter.com/CraigSilverman/status/522179364767924224 https://twitter.com/CraigSilverman/status/522179364767924224 and https://www.theverge.com/2014/10/22/7028983/fake-news-sites-are-using-facebook-to-spread-ebola-panic https://www.theverge.com/2014/10/22/7028983/fake-news-sites-... are good examples of its use pre-Trump. By the time Trump started applying it to actual news outlets, it was already in relatively common use.

triangleman 6y ago
The irony runs deep in this case. The examples you point out are good ones for the term in common use through the end of 2016. Then this happened: https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/08/politics/hillary-clinton-fake-news-epidemic/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/08/politics/hillary-clinton-fake... December 2016 Hillary Clinton decides to use the term in reference to recent events like her losing the election. The media picks up on it and the term starts to lose its meaning. Then Donald Trump, always with a nose for catch phrase politics, picks up the term and runs with it, a turn of events that someone on HN called a huge "own goal" by the media, and I can't say I disagree with that assessment. For more analysis of this cultural specimen: https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-42724320 https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-42724320
vxNsr 6y ago
It's possible that the term existed before Hillary/Trump but your examples aren't it. In your examples the word "fake" is used as an adjective to the noun "news site". As in "a fake news site". "fake news" as it used today is a noun in its own right. As in "that's fake news" See also "alternative facts".

bawolff 6y ago

It was always dismissive. Serious people used already existing terms like propaganda or yellow journalism.

DyslexicAtheist 6y ago

It was not coined by Donald Trump[1][2]: > Author Sarah Churchwell asserts that it was Woodrow Wilson who popularized the phrase 'fake news' in 1915, although the phrase had been used in the US in the previous century. > The term actually dates from the late 19th century, when it was used by newspapers and magazines to boast about their own journalistic standards and attack those of their rivals. In 1895, for example, Electricity: A Popular Electrical Journal bragged that “we never copy fake news,” while in 1896 a writer at one San Jose, California, paper excoriated the publisher of another: “It is his habit to indulge in fake news. ... [H]e will make up news when he fails to find it.” [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_news#20th_century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_news#20th_century [2] https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/In-a-Word/2019/0726/Surprisingly-old-words-that-seem-contemporary https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/In-a-Word/2019/0726/Su...

P_I_Staker 6y ago

No, and it's total bullshit that we let him get away with re-claiming it. Originally, it was for stories that were ludicrously false and made up. It's like the stuff you see in tabloids. It was being passed around on social media as real news. Things like Obama being a secret Muslim, and not a natural born US citizen. You know the things that launched Trump's campaign.

senderista 6y ago

Wrong, it originally referred to fabricated political news stories (generally pro-Trump) circulated on social media during the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump later co-opted the term to mean any unfavorable news coverage.