News Coining
Fake news is a term known by many but not properly understood. Many believe the coining of fake news viralized by Donald Trump and his presidency but it has roots from years before. To understand its current status it is important to look at the meaning it holds today, its roots back to the founding fathers, and how technology has helped popularize it to the common word seen thrown around today by all spectrums of influence from the average citizen to top political figures.
First, it is important to understand how it is understood. Fake news is misinformation spread as news usually with malicious intent. In political means, fake news is news that usually intends to smear the opposing political party or its members via fake, misleading, or manipulated content. This is commonly connected with Donald Trump, who gave a popular political meaning to the term fake news as he connects it to media outlets stating that the way they portray his words or actions is fake news (Beaujon, 2019). Donald Trump was surrounded by outrageous news headlines during his presidential campaign. With hundreds of articles that’d speak for his character and those who speak for him. Many of these stories and headlines went and either hyperbolized his statements or took away context though some stories were straight-up fabricated. A prominent example is fictitious articles such as the Pope endorsing Donald Trump that circulated on Facebook pages back in 2016 (Mansky, 2018). Trump wasn’t the only receiver of fake news in nearly all meanings of the term as other presidential candidates also received copious amounts of fake news during their election campaigns. Trump as a public figure however only amplified the out-of-context snippets that created mass caricatures of his character, his fabricated or biased stories were more believable with his caricature and were likely to receive more clicks and as such incentive to keep writing on him (Davies, 2016). His name and his actions helped many websites capitalize on the social media advertising revenue and fueled the way for more heavily biased or falsified stories as they got more clicks (Davies, 2016).
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Donald Trump, although not the sole creator of the term fake news, is the one to popularize it as it is known today. With results booming as high as 365x in Google trends after Trump’s first time speaking of fake news it makes it clear that it takes from him and his word has made it well-known in the political sphere. Donald Trump believes that the news of today should be under harder libel laws for purposeful negative articles. He in particular took shots at the New York Times during his early presidency in certain tweets, saying that they “disgraced the media world” and twisted his words (Kirtley, 2019). He would hold this sentiment of “opening up the libel laws” throughout his entire presidency, yet would make virtually no progress for what he’d call fairness on his side of libel laws (Kirtley, 2019). This would seem odd for a president especially early on in their presidency to get nothing from Congress during their honeymoon phase but that is because of something far greater than word from a single president: the First Amendment of the Constitution. Most civil liberties have set in stone precedents from the Supreme Court and for the First Amendment, multiple cases go through every single category it protects. An extremely similar case to Trump’s want to crack down on fake news was the Supreme Court decision, New York Times v. Sullivan. This case arose during the civil rights movement when a public safety commissioner named L.B. Sullivan sued the New York Times after he believed he was defamed in a fundraising advert through several factually inaccurate allegations about the Montgomery police-- claims that never spoke of him directly but he deemed defamatory. According to Alabama’s libel law, Sullivan was in the right but that took the attention of the Supreme Court which decided that the libel law was unconstitutional as it infringed on First Amendment rights. The focus of the case according to Justice Brennan was that it is important to avoid media self-censorship and that the government should preserve the “profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open” (Wermiel, 2014). This case means that nothing Trump could’ve done would make it so that any libel laws that fit his standards could be introduced without being unconstitutional. Not even the appointment of new judges could make a dent in the impossibility of turning an integral and unanimous decision-- including the remarkable milestone of getting three Supreme Court judges Trump was able to accomplish. Donald Trump has ultimately failed to bring out the changes he wanted. Although people who supported the libel laws made points to say that a more harsh and interpretive stance on libel laws could crack down on fake news, it is clear that without a doubt the possibility of helping eliminate fake news should not come at the price of basic civil liberties and the ability to debate with the government. This point is held tight by the results of Trump’s failure to pull results on opening libel law and the implied challenges that come with the precedents set by previous Supreme Court cases, especially on important civil liberties like freedom of the press.
Fake News Aliases
Although we know it today as fake news, the concept is as deep-rooted in American history as back as before the Revolutionary War. Throughout history, fake news as a concept has existed by different sayings during different presidencies, undergone filters from different acts, and shared similar tactics and patterns no matter the period. Trump’s story and attempted implications of fake news pales in comparison to what was accomplished with fake news decades and centuries before. This timeline will show the growth of fake news, further prove its existence is beyond a fad, and show striking similarities in what fake news does or hopes to accomplish.
The earliest important instance of fake news that connects to American politics is Samuel Adams’ writings against Hutchinson, an unpopular British loyalist politician. Hutchinson was frustrated at the writings of Samuel Adams in the Boston Gazette, whose statements against Hutchinson were read by “seven-eights of the People” in New England and they “read none but this infamous paper and so are never undeceived” (Mansky, 2018). Arsonists would later burn down Hutchinson’s house over the Stamp Act which Hutchinson had not even given any praise to at all. Hutchinson would attribute the event to Samuel Adams who he believed “jacked up” ninety percent of the arsonists (Mansky, 2018). This event already draws connections to the Pizzagate shootings, with person(s) provoked by fake news reports causing extreme action when emotions are played to a high.
Another important instance of fake news was during John Adams’ presidency who shared similar issues as Hutchinson before and Trump later. His presidency was unpopular and short and he would receive plenty of hate from opposing media outlets. The most influential Democratic-Republican paper of its time, The Philadelphia Aurora, would call Adams “old, querulous, bald blind, crippled, [and] toothless” (Stewart, 1969, p. 538). The scandal of the XYZ affair during Adams's presidency would help push him to create The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1768 to avoid pushback in what would be an assumed war about to take place. This act banned any writings deemed false or malicious towards the government or to incite an act against the government as well as allowed the expulsion, delayed naturalization, and detention of aliens aimed at French and Irish immigrants in particular. (Leibiger, 2018). This act was very unpopular and its mass censorship led some states to threaten seceding. The act in practice attacked the press that even spoke anything remotely foul about his presidency. It went against any right to incite sedition, something that is universally unpopular but even worse to a newly separated country. His presidency and attitude towards the press draw patterns with Trump’s. Both would lose their re-elections, both had no tolerance for the bad press, and both would take (or hope to take) unconstitutional measures to mitigate the bad press.
Just as how presidents have had to deal with fake news throughout the years, the wording has been also changing as well. Fake news had a different name before 2016-- yellow journalism. Yellow journalism had a reign of power in the press starting back in the late 1890s and lasted for years until the 1900s. Over-sensationalized half-truths to full-on lies were created to get the attention of the reader and rake in money in quick succession. There were two publishers with mass influence and considered the figureheads of the creation of yellow journalism: Hearst and Pulitzer (Ferguson III, 2009). One would have a recurring little boy in a yellow rain suit who’d tell what is happening in the crazy illustrations on the front page of the papers, this yellow paper-boy would twist into the naming of yellow journalism (Ferguson III, 2009). This alone is proof of their ability to be talked about by the public and written about by the public as well. They were both so good at creating anti-Spanish sentiment and creating catchy titles that when the USS Maine blew up, they’d throw claims at the Spanish. In a turn of events, the Spanish-American War would continue shortly after American opinion turned towards war efforts. Many historians attribute the war to yellow journalism as the catalyst (Ferguson III, 2009). This marked soon the end of yellow journalism after its peak and such sensationalist media was frowned upon especially when the content went from half-truths to full-on lies to sell hundreds of thousands of copies.
Overall, fake news has lived its life under different callings and with different reactions from either the public, presidents or the press. Fake news cannot be a fad if its outcomes are large and wide with connections to huge events found in many historical textbooks. With similar intentions by most publishers of these fake news articles, it shows the malevolence that fake news harbors and spreads when its fiction or hyperbole is treated with the same weight as factual papers.
Fake News Growth
As technology has grown from radio to television to computers, the amount of information able to be accessed and spread around has grown tremendously. Some may have had to share a couple dozen channels and had sparse information cycles in the earlier generations now can skim through dozens of encyclopedias with less than ten clicks. However, this also means that fake news will also passively grow as more can express themselves and access information spread by others.
According to a report by the Pew Research Center, a majority of those between ages 18 and 49 reported that they got a substantial amount of political knowledge from internet-based sources like social media, websites, and apps (Mitchell, 2020). This is especially important since websites like Google and Facebook harbor the most fake news of any news source. The research also found that 57% of those who received information primarily from social media had low political knowledge in general and only 17% had an adequately high political knowledge rating, making it the 2nd to least knowledgeable population only slightly beating those who got information primarily from local (not network) television (Mitchell, 2020). This would mean that those who are most at risk of interacting with fake news are also some of the least knowledgeable to discern what is strictly fact in their information pool. This number of people isn’t few and far between, with around 72% of Americans interacting with social media (using all age groups starting at age 18), this shows that no one is alien to fake news and has likely met at least one or two fake news articles within their time online (Mitchell, 2020).
Fake News Dangers
Fake News on COVID-19
Fake news even if the effects on the psyche aren’t immediately noticeable still exists at large. A recent study was done to see if disinformation can change unconscious behavior. It found that “short exposure to disinformation…can have moderate effects on individual behavior” (Bastick, 2020). These moderate effects can have reasonable effects on narrow-margin decision-making processes such as elections which can have large societal implications. This same disinformation can lead to decisions on whether or not to believe in COVID-19 back when it was first sprouting, which a few early infections have led to large global effects due to negligence.
Early COVID-19 news is a good example of how fake news can snowball into what would have been a preventable global pandemic. I remember when my parents came to me and told me that COVID-19 wasn’t a virus but instead a bacteria and backed their claims due to seeing it on Facebook and shared by their friends. It is clear how misconceptions like these can change how people perceive the danger COVID-19 presents on how people react to it. In America, it has become a political controversy to wear masks as it thematically has been linked to politics by the general public. This is a sentiment not shared by the rest of the world. Throughout the pandemic, Republican-concentrated states have been more hesitant to mandate masks and COVID precautionary measures. America’s ideology of personal liberty has made it especially hard to convince people to sacrifice some of their liberty to prioritize safety. Republican politicians have been more keen towards masks as COVID grows although the partisan divide on masks has already been wedged and many determined patriots are likely to look towards articles to debunk the efficacy of masks. Many fake claims have been made about masks and shared with anti-mask groups all over Facebook such as fake documents about WHO and claims that masks deprive oxygen and hurt the immune system (Kiely, 2021). This partisanship and patriotism towards anti-mask agendas fueled by fake news is a large contributor to America’s poor COVID-19 elimination when compared to other countries.
Fake News on the Presidency
There has been controversy ever since Trump’s victory in the 2016 election on how or if fake news has had a large effect on whether or not Trump should have won. Although articles are split on the efficacy fake news could have presented, it does prove that fake news is so prevalent that the discussion can be made in the first place. However, fake news allegations can be tied to the 2020 election. When Biden won, Trump made allegations of mass voter fraud. Voter outrage escalated towards the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021 to prevent the electoral vote counting. Starting with a Facebook group called “Stop the Steal” on November 4th, 2020, and growing to over 320, 000 members in less than 24hrs, it had a circle of conspiracy theories and disinformation fueling the event that would happen at the U.S. Capitol (Duignan, 2021). Trump didn’t debunk the conspiracy theories but instead used his authoritative power to spread the conspiracy theories that said Democrats rigged the election. This would help further the radicalization of pro-Trump supporters to take drastic action. Trump’s weaponization of the word fake news to shut down criticism as well as his use of authoritative power and internet know-how to help him further his agendas showed the risks and dangers that fake news presents on public policy and influence. This also furthers the trend that the more radical the political ideology the more likely they will fall to the appeal of fake news.
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