In 1769, John Adams gleefully wrote in his diary about spending the evening occupied with "a curious employment. Cooking up Paragraphs, Articles, Occurrences etc. -- working the political Engine!" Adams, along with his cousin Sam and a handful of other Boston patriots, were planting false and exaggerated stories meant to undermine royal authority in Massachusetts.
I think we all need to be careful about the idea of banning or otherwise regulating “fake news”. We are very close to be maneuvered into supporting censorship. We get censorship then bye bye Free Republic as well as talk radio, etc.
All need to retain a healthy skepticism to everything you read, hear or are told. Just because “the story” is “something our enemies would surely do, they are that evil, immoral, etc. “ doesn’t mean they actually did it! Desperately wanting something to be true doesn’t make it true! Many stories fit the “facts” providing you actually know “the facts”, & can reliably source “the facts”. “Facts” change the “story” will change. Also the teller of “facts” & “stories” may have an “agenda”, like your wallet (common!) or the “joy” of manipulating you (sociopathic!). Sitting at your computer and reaching out reaching out into cyberspace and pulling in “information” means you get mostly “noise”, pulling “facts” out of that is much harder the just reading your screen.