Comment by toss1
3 years ago
One nit:
"Fake News" is now exactly as you describe: "a term to allow a blanket dismissal of anything made public that political leaders don't want to be heard."
However, IIRC, the original coinage of the term was about disinformation and/or news organizations that consistently traded in misinformation or disinformation.
The speed with which it got co-opted by political leaders as a blanket dismissal was impressive. I'm not sure it even lasted months in its initial meaning.
> However, IIRC, the original coinage of the term was about disinformation and/or news organizations that consistently traded in misinformation or disinformation.
Correct. I recall it initially as a left-leaning term coined in response to the "alternative facts" incident.