I find it interesting for a different reason. At the risk of sounding like these fake news peddlers, I see the problem like this:

             BULLSHIT SCALE
   |[------]----------[---------------]-->
   |    |                        |       |
   |   the range people think    |      fake news
   |   news publications         |
   |   operate in               the range
   |                            they actually
   |                            operate in
  as close to truth
  as one could get

That is, "fake news" is only a little bit worse than the stuff mainstream news publishes. It's different only because it dares to make that one extra step, cross the line and detach completely from reality. The goal of both is the same anyway - to drive ad impressions. To me, news publications writing about fake news is like pickpockets getting all outraged about muggers, who don't engage in the fine arts of trickery, and instead just hit their victim and take their wallet. They're just angry because they have competition.

And I don't buy the argument that the contents of news is just innocent bias, and that everyone has one; when one publication makes a square look like a circle, and another makes it look like triangle, then that's taking it a bit too far.

Evidence for my view is evident if you add up all the little things HN readers encounter regularly. For instance, it's a rare news article posted on HN (or in other relevant communities frequented by experts) that doesn't get thoroughly ripped apart when someone posts the original source behind it, or when someone who knows the topic first-hand or second-hand chimes in. Gell-Mann amnesia is a known phenomenon. The fact that you should always review articles quoting you prior to publications because journalists will misquote you, making you look like you believe the opposite of what you do, is a well-ingrained cultural meme, speaking to the ubiquity of the problem. Etc.