Not Exactly Lying: Fake News and Fake Journalism in American History (Columbia University Press, 2022)

Describe the focus of your book. 

Fake news has been a feature of American journalism since Publick Occurrences hit the streets of Boston in 1690. Paradoxically, however, the enduring battles to defeat fake news have helped give rise to a phenomenon even more hazardous to truth and democracy. I’m calling it “fake journalism”: the appropriation and exploitation of the outward forms of professionalized journalism in order to lend credibility to falsehood, propaganda, disinformation, and advocacy. As the media have grown ever more massive and ever more deeply entwined in the political system, so has fake journalism, to the point where it has become an essential driver of the political polarization of public life.

How did you come across this subject? Why did it interest you?

I’ve been writing about fake news since long before it became a meme. I’ve always been interested in the evolution of the conventions of truth-telling–in journalism but also in history, photography, personal narrative, and other nonfiction forms–and it became very clear to me that you can’t study what’s accepted as true without also understanding what isn’t, what wasn’t, and what shouldn’t be.

What archives or research materials did you use? 

My main—and favorite—sources were searchable databases of historical newspapers and magazines (ProQuest, Chronicling America, Newspapers.com, Readex Historical Newspapers, American Periodicals, OpinionArchives, lots of individual and proprietary databases), which allowed me to follow particular stories across eras and regions and to watch how they grew, mutated, and clashed. What a welcome change from the hassles, limitations, and discomforts of the microfilm reader!

How does your book relate to journalism history? How is it relevant to the present?

It addresses the whole three-century-plus history of U.S. journalism, and concludes by arguing that it’s more important than ever for the true professional journalists to strengthen and maintain the traditional standards and conventions of the craft. They must commit themselves to the rigorous, fact-based, non-partisan, intellectually honest search for truth–wherever the evidence might lead.

What advice do you have for other historians that are working on or starting book projects?

Know when to stop! Every time I thought I’d come to the end, some fresh incident, provocation, or outrage involving fake journalism or fake news would erupt and tempt me to add just a few more paragraphs… Of course you want your book to be good, but you also want it to be done.