“There was debate over the use of the term “fake news,” in the title of the handbook and throughout. “Fake news” is today so much more than a label for false and misleading information, disguised and disseminated as news. It has become an emotional, weaponized term used to undermine and discredit journalism. For this reason, the terms disinformation and misinformation, along with “information disorder” and “mal-information” (as suggested by First Draft’s Claire Wardle and her research colleague Hossein Derakhshan) are favored in the handbook, but not prescribed.
We concluded that it’s impossible to discuss and respond to the crisis without naming the beast — especially when the news media and academic literature are full of the term “fake news.” But it is a deeply problematic terms and we treat it as such — even striking through the words on the cover. “‘Fake news’ is an oxymoron which lends itself to undermining the credibility of information which does indeed meet the threshold of verifiability and public interest — that is, real news,” UNESCO’s Berger writes in the foreword to the handbook. “To better understand the cases involving exploitative manipulation of the language and conventions of news genres, this publication treats these acts of fraud for what they are — as a particular category of phony information within increasingly diverse forms of disinformation.””
