It's a new phenomenon for someone to tell a lie and have it spread like wildfire? The internet might enable both the truth and lies to spread faster, but I don't see it as something fundamentally new.
The current propaganda over fake news is solely about the Trump election result and attempting to install a form of censorship & control over information either directly (outlaw 'fake news' via political content controls or similar) or indirectly (get FB/Google/Twitter to shut down distribution, which they're thrilled to do) to prevent that from ever happening again.