Academics from the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media & Democracy in North Carolina crunched the numbers and found that as the Trump era ushered in the strategy of politicians slandering legitimate reporting as ‘fake news’, self-identifying as ‘fact-based journalism’ became a way for news organisations to push back against efforts by politicians or hyperpartisan media outlets to discredit them. “If some sort of qualifier is indeed necessary in this age of widespread efforts to disguise falsity and political influence operations as journalism, then how about a term that goes on the offensive — perhaps ‘legitimate journalism’ or ‘authentic journalism’?