- fiction not labelled as such: items invented from whole cloth with no regard for evidence. Conspiracy garbage. "B52 FOUND ON MOON".
- correctly reporting an official statement that turns out to be false, without checking the underlying facts ("WMD in Iraq": the newspapers accurately reported what the officials said!). Various other sorts of bad, sycophantic or "yellow" journalism.
- hostile propaganda, malicious lies, racial slander, and the like: protocols of zion/blood libel/etc material. Similar slander of Muslims. QAnon and Pizzagate. Previously the mainstream media refused to touch this stuff, but now it's being spread to a large audience via social media. Various sorts of government psyops, including but not limited to Russia.
The problem is that people correctly see the "old fake news" (2), but then replace it with even less accurate news (3).
What you consider alternative / independent journalists could be charlatans by journalistic standards. It's hard to say in the abstract.