Fake News Selected as Word of the Year

According to NBC, Donald Trump, the President of the United States, will surely be pleased to hear that 'fake news,' one of his favorite phrases, has been chosen as the word of the year by the Collins English Dictionary. The Collins Dictionary, published in the UK, stated that the use of the term 'fake news' has increased by approximately 365% over the past year. The Collins Dictionary defines 'fake news' as 'false information, often sensational, disguised as news reporting.' In a review of the most frequently used words in the English language, this phrase topped the list and will be added to next year's edition of the dictionary. This phrase has been most frequently used by Donald Trump, who typically employs it to criticize the media and press. One of the executives at HarperCollins, the publishing house, noted that a significant portion of the phrases added to the dictionary this year carry political weight and meaning. He added that although 'fake news' has been widely used over the past year to undermine public trust in the media, its addition to the Collins Dictionary is not fake news. HarperCollins, which has been publishing the Collins Dictionary since 1819, stated in a statement on Thursday that the combination of the words 'fake' and 'news' began in the realm of comedy, particularly in political satire television shows. Since 2005, the use of this phrase to describe fake news has also become common. During the 2016 U.S. election campaign, commentators noticed that numerous websites were publishing 'fake news' about the candidates in the form of news reports. In January 2017, Donald Trump described a CNN report about his campaign's contacts with Russia as 'fake news.' According to HarperCollins, research on the production and dissemination of 'fake news' became a significant topic in media reporting and political journalism in 2017.