I hate the term...Fake News....who started it?

[Funtatlaguy]

I'm assuming it was Trump.
Probably during the primaries.
Anyway, that term has pervaded all of my spaces.
I hear it from all different types of people who think it's funny.
It's not funny.

It's a deliberate effort to denigrate legitimate media sources and reports and lump them in with illegitimate ones (e.g. Fox News).

I hope the stupid term goes away when Trump finally does.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

1. It was started to refer to actual, documentable fake news spread online...

....almost certainly with the help of Russia and almost exclusively meant to help Trump and hurt Clinton.

Trump then co-opted the term to refer to any news about him that he didn't like, even if it was true.

[Lint Head]

10. The word fake in the word news has been around awhile

but turning it into a phrase and putting the words together had to be plans and promoted. I think it was started by Russian troll Farms because Russia likes to control the news and anything anti-russian is frowned upon.
Trump obviously picked up the phrase and started using it because people like Alex Jones Fox News have promoted Russian propaganda. Probably unknowingly.

[Siwsan]

2. I'm thinking it was the fake tan, fake hair, fake billionaire fraudster in the White House

Because if there is one thing he is expert at, it's being fake.

[PearliePoo2]

3. I hate it too! You're right, it's not funny, it is in fact dangerous in many ways.

If there is ANYTHING truly "Fake", it is Donald himself.

"Fake News" ranks right up there with another term that I'm sick of hearing: "Nothing Burger".
Both of them make me want to puke...

[samnsara]

4. trump and his limited childlike vocabulary...

...I think we used to call it disinformation...when we were an educated society instead a culture dominated by dullards and dotards

[UTUSN]

14. Nailed: his ignorant vocabulary. "Disinformation/propaganda" are too hard.

[Docreed2003]

5. "Pizzagate" was the biggy that flamed the "Fake News" label

I remember thinking at the time that Trump would likely steal the term and use it exactly as he has been using it! He labels anything that portrays him negatively or that exposes his bullshit as "fake news".

[TCJ70]

6. Trump did not start it. It was actually meant to mean news that isnt true...

...and created online. NPR actually met up with one of the people responsible if I remember correctly. These people were going so far as to create news sites that looked legit with things like weather and such to make it more believable.

As with most things he touches, Trump had a negative effect on the phrase and used it to mean legit news sources that he felt were biased against him. Then his supporters started using it the same way and morphed it into something it isn’t.

[DetlefK]

7. The mainstream-media coined "fake news" to refer to right-wing lies during the 2016 campaign.

Then the right-wing turned around and said, "No, YOU are fake news!"

And since then, everything you don't like is automatically fake news.

[oberliner]

8. It originally meant actual fake stories planted by Russia and others

Trump rebranded the term to mean any news item that reflects negatively on him.

[Lars39]

9. fwiw, my inlaws used the term before

the campaign. On the receiving end of a little lecture from them about "fake news" on the internet. They believe everything their preacher and Fox news tells them.

Can't prove it, but I think the fake news warnings started with the Southern Baptists.
That denomination has been politicized with an agenda.

[Scoopster]

11. Hitler & the Nazis started it.

These current-day Nazis just borrowed it from them. They have no original ideas of their own just greed and misery.

[DFW]

12. Short memories, maybe? This is not a new term.

How about this from 2004?
http://www.cc.com/video-clips/by7kvs/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-fake-news-controversy

Jon Stewart used the term to describe The Daily Show in order to blow off complaints from the Cheney-Bush White House that they were slanting the news. Stewart said it was comedy and fake news, and they weren't trying to be a real news program (as a contrast to Fox, which really did broadcast lies and yet got to call them news).

[Funtatlaguy]

13. Thanks for all of the replies.

It's just sad what has happened to the real news industry.
Should never have become a profit center.
That's when it became infotainment.
And, for Fox, pure propaganda.