The Genesis of Fake News

St. Mark's Anglican Church
St. John's, Newfoundland

According to Merriam-Webster, some of the earliest uses of the phrase “fake news” go back to newspaper articles in 1890 and 1891. However, fake news itself goes back much further. For those who believe in the story of creation as presented in the Old Testament Book of Genesis, it could be said that fake news goes back almost to the very beginning.

Fake Hysteria, Orson Welles, and War of the Worlds

Like many writers, I sometimes do other work to make ends meet. One of the jobs I’ve had involved reviewing short written answers to test questions about a designated reading. The students were eleventh graders and one of the readings was about Orson Welles’ famous War of the Worlds broadcast on Mercury Theatre on the Air.

On his show, Orson Welles presented audiences with dramatizations of various novels. On October 30, 1938, the selection was War of the Worlds, an 1898 novel by H.G. Wells. The novel was adapted to depict a live invasion of Grover Mills, New Jersey, by hostile Martians. According to lore, the broadcast sent millions of Americans into a panic.

However, that lore has been debunked.