There has been a lot of talk in the news and on social media recently about the seemingly new phenomenon of fake news stories. I get a bit of a kick out of this, because it’s not really new, and the phenomenon was not invented during, or to undermine, our recent election cycle, as some seem to suggest.

What’s not so funny is how some of these stories grab the spotlight and contribute to the erosion of our remaining respect for all information sources—let alone the already credibility-challenged “mainstream media.”

I find it confounding that these stories are called “fake news stories.” Is there any reason why we aren’t just calling them lies? Why sugar-coat these efforts to misinform and divide us? Chalk it up as another great example of rampant political correctness that has been successful in diluting and obscuring the truth for decades.