The first fake news of History

Abstract

The first ‘fake news’ of Contemporary History was published by the New York newspaper The Sun in 1835 and dealt about beings that inhabited the Moon. The news caused a huge impact in the US due to three factors: the appearance of high-capacity presses, the fall in the price of newspapers (the penny press), and the arrival of new transportation means that exceeded the speed of the horses for the first time in history: trains and steamboats. All these factors helped to disseminate false and sensationalist information on a large scale under the guise of true news. Today this is what we call “fake news”.