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Comment by PJDK | Hacker News Reader

I was under the impression that "fake news" was originally referring to the phenomenon of "satire" websites that would publish click bait headlines with semi-convincing stories. "Obama signs executive order banning handguns" that sort of thing. The motivation to do so seemed to be financial but there could be social impacts to.

It seems to have been rapidly adopted as a term to also include "opinions/interpretations I disagree with" - or in some cases "accurate things I wish weren't true".

I think lies, misinformation and propaganda underplay the essentially chaotic nature of a lot of this stuff. An evil mastermind at work is seductive as an idea because the solution is just punching. I don't see any evidence that that is the truth though.

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>I was under the impression that "fake news" was originally referring to the phenomenon of "satire" websites that would publish click bait headlines with semi-convincing stories. "Obama signs executive order banning handguns" that sort of thing. The motivation to do so seemed to be financial but there could be social impacts to.

Kind of. Before it became (for lack of a better word) a meme, it essentially meant literally what it says: news website that published fake articles. This is what the British tabloids have been doing for decades, for what it's worth.

After the US presidential election, it quickly became a buzzword referring to the sorts of websites that posted articles that aren't just misleading but are actively made up and are presented as being true. These were mostly very, very right-wing Trump-supporting websites.

>It seems to have been rapidly adopted as a term to also include "opinions/interpretations I disagree with" - or in some cases "accurate things I wish weren't true".

By the alt-right, yes. Trump and his supporters immediately co-opted the term to mean 'things I don't like', which Trump regularly applies to CNN, which is certainly not fake news by any reasonable definition.

I don't really think that fake news is particularly chaotic. It's intentionally misleading, intentionally biased, intentionally targeted towards peoples' rasher emotions.

CNN is "certainly not fake news" in the sense that the articles aren't wholly made up. However, I've seen many an article where an inflammatory headline was not directly addressed anywhere in the content of the article. I suppose that kind of thing is merely "clickbait", but I consider it disqualifying for a news agency that wants to be taken seriously.

I mostly agree, but would like to share a counter-anecdote.

When I was growing up my parents would take 'weekend drives'. They would look at architecture, comment on things from tree species to historical events in the area. And they would listen to talk radio. Most of the time, I'd be fighting nausea in the back seat. For a very long time I had a very strong association between talk radio and actual nausea.

About a decade ago a friend introduced me to Car Talk on NPR. Car Talk isn't jornalism or news, but it was very entertaining. It became my 'gateway drug' to NPR. I added Wait, Wait, Donn't Tell Me to the my list (again, not journalism, but definitely newsy), and now NPR's morning line-up, including actual journalism) is a regular part of my workday routine.

So, sometimes the clickbaity, not really news pieces can gently introduce people to the real deal.

(apologies for any typos: phone response)

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