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The term "fake news" appeared as far back as 1894 during the era of yellow journalism.

Fake news consists of "news" that isblatantly false or otherwise distorted in the hopes ofgetting more clicks by feeding people the headlinesthey didn't know they wanted, in thehopes knowledge that shamelessly pandering to an agenda often proves sufficient to suspend the readers' disbelief. Depressing amounts of clicks can be garnered from fake news, simply by virtue of it posing as 'clear-cut examples' which —if true — would lend overwhelming apparent support toone side of the relevant multi-faceted, emotionally charged and complex issue. While fake news is a threat to common decency, one must admit that it is more entertaining than most normal news.

With the growth of the 24 hour news cycle, major media outlets needed to fill numerous hours of airtime, so in addition to "news" they added opinion, commentary, analysis, speculation and forecasting often centered around media personalities. This left them vulnerable to the charge of being labeled "fake news" themselves as traditional "news" was programmed adjacent to "narrative journalism."

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