Thursday, October 1, 2026
There’s fake news — and then there are fake accusations of fake news.
The first deserves condemnation. The second deserves our attention.
Fake news fabricates quotations, invents events, manipulates photos or knowingly reports things that never happened. It has existed for as long as journalism has existed, and it deserves every ounce of criticism it receives.
But there’s another phenomenon, one that has become a defining feature of the current administration. It’s the increasingly routine practice of branding accurate, evidence-based reporting as fake news simply because it’s politically inconvenient.
When journalists reported, accurately, that Joe Biden was the winner of the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump and his supporters dismissed it as fake news. When other journalists incorrectly reported that Trump was the real winner and that there had been widespread election tampering, the fabrications were touted by Trump and his minions as true, accurate and intelligent. For this administration, the formula is simple: Facts are fake unless they are praise. Journalists who don’t flatter the president can’t be trusted, the evidence they cite is “made up” and they’re probably traitors.
Imagine a basketball game in which one player drives an elbow squarely into an opponent’s face. The referee whistles a foul. Six cameras capture the play. Slow-motion replay confirms it. Twenty thousand fans watch it happen.
The offending player denies touching anyone. His coach accuses the officials of bias. Fans boo the referees. Sports talk radio personalities debate whether replay officials manipulated the video. Eventually, no one is discussing the elbow anymore. The argument has shifted to whether officials and cameras can be trusted at all.
That increasingly resembles the relationship between this administration and the American press.
Consider a few recent examples. When news organizations reported concerns about U.S. munitions stockpiles during the conflict with Iran, the response wasn’t merely to dispute the reporting. The stories were dismissed as fake news, and reporters and anonymous sources were attacked. Yet the administration itself has acknowledged the need to accelerate munitions production and replenish inventories.
When CNN reported the Pentagon’s own assessments of the military situation involving Iran, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth couldn’t present contrary evidence. He just dismissed the reporting as “more fake news from CNN.”
When journalists reported that tariffs were likely to increase prices for many consumer goods — and businesses announced price increases — the administration repeatedly characterized much of the coverage as exaggerated or fictional.
In April 2025, the White House published a document entitled “100 Days of Hoaxes: Cutting Through the Fake News.” Rather than identify fabricated stories one by one, it presented a broad catalog of unfavorable reporting that the administration characterized as hoaxes or fake news. The significance wasn’t whether each of the administration’s disputes with the press was right or wrong; it was that the accusation itself became an organized communications strategy rather than a response to demonstrably fabricated reporting.
Whether you agree with the administration’s policies is beside the point. People may be for or against the conflict with Iran, and may disagree with the ways it’s portrayed in the media. But if the Strait of Hormuz is still being blocked by Iranian ships, it isn’t fake news to report the observable fact that the waterway is effectively closed to normal, unrestricted commercial shipping, with any limited transit strictly controlled and authorized only by Iran.
Journalists report legislation that Congress passes, rulings that judges actually issue, speeches that officials actually deliver, statistics that government agencies themselves release. If the reports don’t seem accurate, they should be challenged with evidence that fairly contradicts them. Crying “Fake news!” isn’t a reasoned expression of disagreement.
To be sure, democracy doesn’t require agreement. What it does require is a willingness to argue from a common body of observable facts. Americans disagree about taxes, immigration, war — and presidents. Thoughtful disagreement is healthy, and often clarifies an issue from all sides. But calling the reporting of facts an act of fakery isn’t thoughtful disagreement; it’s a calculated strategy to discourage thinking entirely.
The most dangerous fake news may no longer be fabricated journalism. It may be the fabricated accusation that truthful journalism is fake — a rallying cry not against the press, but against reality itself.
Michael Blitz is professor emeritus and former chair of interdisciplinary studies at the City University of New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
