July 9, 2025

If ever the public was betrayed by its press, it’s ours.

William Dean Howells (1837–1920), American writer, Mark Twain-Howells Letters (no date), Seldes p.193

What is your definition of “fake news”? What examples can you cite?

If only Howells had told us what prompted this statement? There’s no denying that “fake news” has a history. Recall the “yellow journalism” of the Hearst and Pulitzer newspapers that led the U.S.A. into the Spanish-American War in 1898. When illustrator Frederic Remington cabled Hearst from Cuba: “Everything is quiet. There is no trouble. There will be no war”, Hearst replied: “You furnish the pictures. I’ll furnish the war.” But let’s not forget evidence of the opposite phenomenon: the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War and the role of the Washington Post in the Watergate years. The press varies.