Is Fake News Old News?

It is imperative to democracy that we stop labeling what we disagree with as “fake news.”

By Tom Cohen and Nathalia Ramos

Despite recent outbursts by politicians, fake news is neither a recent development nor necessarily ubiquitous. It’s an ancient battlefield covered with the weapons of thousands of years of rhetoric and debate. This is because one of the earliest methods of subverting an enemy’s opinion was to call it wrong or evil. When we disagree with someone, it is easy to label it wrong or evil and give a reason for disagreeing rather than understanding. We are all guilty of subversion rather than consideration.