twitter's Journal: The rise and fall of honest journalism.

Robert Love, Columbia University School of Journalism Professor, wrote an insightful and entertaining historical review of fake news. He covers amusing hoaxes, the role newspapers played in the Spanish American war and current media's ability to deliver trustworthy news and information.

Today, people expect the news media to give them relevant, accurate information. Serious journalists have for decades thought of themselves as the descendants of muckrakers, reformers, and watchdogs. ... This presumption of good faith makes us the perfect marks for the new agenda-based fakers. ...

Welcome to journalisms latest transitional phase, where another rush of technology is changing the business in ways not imaginable ten years ago. ... In a time of falling circulation, diminishing news budgets, and dismantled staffs, the fakers are out there, waiting for their opportunities to exploit the authority that modern journalism conveys.

Overall, the essay is backward looking but the history is very interesting. The internet, digital media, even the telephone are cast in the negative light and the roll of bloggers in exposing scandal and muckraking is not taken into account.