There is fake news and then there is just frivolous news. Fake news, or lying, is as old as the Bible. Frivolous news is a more recent development. It depends on the availability of a cheap way to communicate. Because, when communication is expensive, no one writes frivolous news about things no one should care about.
Everyone gets excited when the Russians use fake news to manipulate elections in the US. I don't see why. We do it too. We got caught red handed in Australia in the '90's when we told lies, a.k.a. fake news, about a Labor Party candidate named Joe Morgan. Australia is an ally. They also get excited when the Russians publish real news that was obtained through spying and hacking or means of dubious legality. Ditto: we do that too.
What is our complaint? That the Russians are better at it than we are? After all, rich and powerful people and organizations have been doing in our country what we accuse the Russians of doing, for many many years. We have free speech in this country. I don't see why that shouldn't apply to foreign powers too. Maybe it could avoid a war. All that fake news about patrol boats in the Gulf of Tonkin. If the Russians had revealed that it was all a bunch of fake news put out by the US government, maybe the US involvement in the Vietnam War never would have started. As a matter of fact, with the exception of WWII, almost all our modern wars have been started with fake news from the government.
I want to have the right to pick which fake news I read. And today, I do more than at any other time. I try to read the other guy's fake news every now and then. I don't want to be closed minded or live in an echo chamber. I used to read Pravda until it became too much like frivolous news.
Which brings me to frivolous news. This is most of the stuff that Google, Yahoo, and Facebook try to cram down our throats as news. Actually, I've never seen what Facebook calls news, I can't bring myself to.
The worst kind of frivolous news is what the paparazzi print. Invading people's lives and making them miserable to get a picture of someone sun bathing naked. Really? Don't read, buy, or support in any way that junk. You can make a good case that it drove Princess Diana to her death. I don't know about you, but I don't want blood on my hands. Just say NO.
If you read frivolous news, you probably don't care too much about accuracy. It's more about enjoyment and relaxation or perhaps confirmation. That's fine. But you are not really being "well informed". The problem is that people who aren't "well informed" are more easily manipulated and they still get to vote. This is how money and fake news get to influence elections. It is the biggest threat to our republic and what it stands or at least stood for.
I've been looking for good news sources. There are lots of blogs out there. And they are good sources of opinions and analysis of the news. But that's what they are: opinions. I've been reading my news from Reuters because it is free and I think pretty well researched and accurate. I don't think it is very biased either. But, it doesn't cover a lot. I'm sure there are other sources. The PBS News Hour used to be a good source of news. Now it is basically a blog.
When they start talking about regulating streams of mixed frivolous and fake news (e.g. Google, Yahoo, Facebook) so that people aren't "mislead", I just have to throw up my hands. The easily manipulated will always be the easily manipulated. The details on how they are manipulated aren't that important. It puts us on the slippery slope of regulating the press in a bad way. That will affect the few remaining reliable sources of news. Even worse, all the news will be fake and have the "right" perspective. You can get the truth out of two liars, if they are enemies. If they are all friends, you don't have a chance.