We Already Experienced an Era of Fake News 100 Years Ago – and Solved It

medium.com

19 points·whydontyoueat··3 comments

This title is misleading. The article doesn't really go into how the "problem was solved," and despite the title's implication, there's zero analysis of how the lessons from the past might help us today.

It just states that after president McKinley was assassinated, the two men who were largely responsible for the rise of yellow journalism had a change of heart.

That's not a "solution" in any sense of the word, nor is it applicable today, as there are not two individual men battling for newspaper sales. Rupert and his son Lachlan Murdoch are semi-comparable media barons, but much of the modern misinformation/disinformation is backed by adversarial states, and decentralized.

To summarize how I see it.

2 democrat affiliated papers(working together inflamed opinion against the republican president) and 2 democrat journalists(1 in each newspaper) called for the assassination of the republican president. Which ended up happening couple months later.

Then compare to today wherein left-leaning news is publishing fake news to inflame opinion.

Also what's the solution? The democrat owners of the papers saw the damage they were doing and decided to stop their fake news?

There wasn't a solution.

Also interesting to see the consequence. The next several presidents until roosevelt are republican. The exception being woodrow wilson but you can ready on how he segregated the troops and actively ordered black troops to the most dangerous front lines. Then you have Harding coming in with 60% of the vote post Wilson.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com