Joanna Thompson summarizes it at (Undark)
It’s worth noting that misinformation — by any definition — has been around for a long time. Ever since the first humans developed language, we’ve been navigating an information landscape pitted with lies, tall tales, myths, pseudoscience, half-truths, and plain old inaccuracies. Medieval European bestiaries, for instance, described creatures like bears and weasels alongside unicorns and manticores. Anti-vaccine groups have been around for over 200 years, well before the internet. And in the age of yellow journalism around the turn of the 20th century, many reporters made up stories out of whole cloth.
“I don’t like this whole talk of ‘we’re living in a post-truth world,’ as if we ever lived in a truth world,” said Catarina Dutilh Novaes