I always receive so much BS in email, Snopes is my go to.

Local election in 2010, I played a small part in helping forward e-mails of police reports and other info obtained via FOIA that was pretty damning for the candidate, since he was running for county procecutor I felt, as did the rest of my friends that worked on compiling the truth, it was important that the facts get out there. He lost.

After Bernie got screwed over, i realized drumpy would be the blight he has shown himself to be. I was on FB probably 14 hours a day trying to fight the tide of falsehoods & fabrications about Hilary...not that she is/was perfect, but, Not Trump....Pizzagate, anyone? Anyway, I must have had some impact as one day there was my face all over FB with "pedophile" plastered on it, my personal email was full of nasty attacks by, for example, a gal who claimed she had "3 degrees from Barkley (sic). So even though i was definitely shoveling the tide with a sand bucket, I feel proud & happy I tried to make a difference....and trolls did too!

False News is as old as news itself.

I was in the middle of an acid trip on my 20's and ran into an incident as only witness not involved between a reporter and a former governor of Puerto Rico outside of a club. The issue involved infidelity because inside I saw him on company... Nobody cared what he did with his life, he was no longer public servant and she was a famous singer. Never mentioned to anyone for a couple days because I couldn't believe what exactly happened except... there it was on the newspapers... what I remember so vividly is that his bodyguards almost run me over removing him from the incident. The incident happened exactly as reported in the news. The part of "Now you can take a picture of me next to the american flag as I shove the flag up your ass" was mellowed out in the paper. What many called false news I could verify as being correct. The affair was not news really to us in the club. But I saw the show outside. 1979 perhaps?

It can be difficult to ascertain the truth in this age of "fake news" and attacks on the media. I can only offer a partial remedy that I use myself: I read 8-15 different newspapers a day: international, national, and local. I also watch several news stations. I find that the majority report the same events, and I can therefore assume with a degree of certainty that the events happened. What's interesting is how each news outlet puts its own spin on the news. Thus, I also get to hear the different perspectives on the same event.