The trouble with ‘fake news’

There is a growing body of literature, both popular and academic—including Alfano and Klein and Meyer’s contributions to this special issue—that holds that the world (or at least the Western World) is facing a new and growing problem that goes by the name ‘fake news’. I argue that this all wrong. It’s true that the world (and especially the Western World) is facing a new and growing problem, but the problem is not fake news, it is the term ‘fake news’.