"Fake news", as a concept, is simple to describe and vilify when it is patently and intentionally false (the Hillary killed Harambe example). However, the fact is that "fake news" is absolutely a much more nuanced concept than just that. There are many examples that can be given of mainstream news outlets reporting stories with urgency and seriousness, when the truth is that it isn't a story at all. An example I like to give is CNN giving a great deal of air time to discuss (with much seriousness) how much Trump's transition as president-elect was in complete disarray. The subtext of this is that if Trump is failing to even
prepare to be president, what kind of failure will he be as president?
This story was proven wrong, with the facts showing that Trump was as far along in his transition as Obama was. David Axelrod, a former Obama Adviser, even came to Trump's defense. But by then the story had been abandoned and a new one had taken it's place, and many of the low-information viewers of the original story were never the wiser, some of whom to this day would likely tell you about how they saw on the news about how Trump bungled his transition.
So I don't really see a difference between the
Hillary killed Harambe and
Trump's Transition in Disarray headlines. They are both designed to mislead people, to misrepresent and mischaracterize events. But I often see how when this is pointed out, that the mainstream news get somewhat of a pass, that their stories were simply "incorrect", or "in error", when the pattern of behavior very much seems to suggest that it is not by accident, but by design. And this brings us back around to the easily-understood "Hillary kills Harambe" versus the story that requires a more thoughtful understanding of the nuance of "fake news".