Early-twentieth-century media critics were some of the first to describe how false news was easily propagated through the media system. A local newspaper would run an inaccurate item. With the advent of the telegraph, these stories could be and often were republished over the next week in newspapers across the country. As Max Sherover wrote in 1914 of newspapers, “The stories they have forwarded are obviously composed in large part of wild romancing. They snap up the most improbable reports and enlarge upon them with every detail that their fancy can suggest.”
