Fake News Nation

January 13, 2020
Cortada, a research fellow at the University of Minnesota, and Asprey, an information science professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, illuminate fake facts and falsehoods throughout American history in this informative survey. The authors discuss falsehoods in advertising, most specifically, in medicine, and list patent medicines (those not backed by scientific research) that claimed cures for tuberculosis (“Piso’s Cure for Consumption”) and diabetes (“Kaadt’s cures”) and were advertised in newspapers throughout the 19th century. They also explore how misinformation shaped political events, such as the freewheeling presidential election in 1828 of Andrew Jackson, who was accused in the press of “wife-stealing,” and they devote time to the many conspiracy theories surrounding the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln (“Confederate public officials arranged the assassination”) and John F. Kennedy (perpetrated by, depending on who one is listening to, the Russians, FBI, CIA, Castro, the Mob, or Vice President Lyndon Johnson). The authors conclude that “Americans have always lived in a parallel information-rich universe.” This fascinating narrative of lies, half-truths, and fabricated theories serves as a timely history.