Fighting Fake News Is Not the Solution

Despair pervaded American newsrooms following the 2016 election. It wasn’t just that most of the media had failed to foresee the outcome of the vote; it was the realization, as one colleague put it, that “nothing we do matters.” Out of this despair, a new resolve and many a subscription drive were born, based on the widely shared belief that if more people consume more-accurate stories, American democracy may be saved.