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1. This is probably super-obvious and others have no doubt pointed this out...but Trump basically began using the phrase "fake news" on January 10, 2017, the exact moment when detailed information about his Russia ties began appearing. 
2. January 10, 2017 is the day James Clapper dropped this bombshell in his testimony before Congress. cnn.com/2017/01/10/pol…
3. He had used the phrase "fake new" in a tweet only once before January 10, 2017. After that, he used it almost daily.
4. Perhaps he just stumbled upon the term, found it useful, and just started repeating it like he does with other phrases like "wall" or "MAGA." Or maybe this was part of a coordinated media strategy picked up from other authoritarian regimes who have used this tactic.
5. The irony, of course, is that "fake news" was in the ether because real journalists had uncovered a cache of people who were literally making up pro-Trump "fake news" and making money off of clicks from the credulous MAGA crowd. npr.org/sections/allte…
6. This interview with @kevinroose, based on his incredible reporting on Mad World News, offers an inside view into the world of "alternative facts" various MAGA grifters have been pumping into the social media feeds of Trump supporters since 2016. nytimes.com/2018/10/31/pod…
@kevinroose 7. I did a search for the phrase "fake news" as deployed on the Twitter feeds of some of Trump's favorite conservatives in the media. Interestingly, Hannity has never used the term, Tucker did a few times before Jan 10, 2017 but then stopped.
@kevinroose 8. Interestingly, Dan Bongino (who I believed worked for NRA TV at the time and was also a Fox News talking head) was an early adopter of "fake news" terminology to defend Trump. He Tweeted about it 15 times between Dec 2 and Dec 23, 2016...but then took a hiatus until Jan 28.
@kevinroose 9. I suspected the Infowars/Alex Jones crowd got in on this "fake news" narrative very early on, but since they've been kicked off of Twitter I did a search of this British Infowars contributor. Jackpot. Summer of 2015 is when the phrase really took off on his account.
@kevinroose 10. Interestingly, in the summer of 2016 this person was actively policing conservative Twitter, letting other folks on his side know when they were circulating genuinely "fake news."
@kevinroose 11. But then beginning in December 2016, this account began using "fake news" exactly as Trump conservatives would...to attack the media, especially around wedge issues like feminism and race. December 7, 2016 was a real full-court press on the "fake news" theme.
@kevinroose 12. I'm wondering if there's a story to be told about how "fake news" migrated from the far right edges of the mediascape and into Trump's Twitter feed in January 2017, akin to this more recent story expertly told by @kevinroose. nytimes.com/interactive/20…
@kevinroose 13. Dec. 7-9, 2016 seems to be the key turning point in how "fake news" was deployed by conservative media. On Dec 7 Infowars created it's "ultimate fake news list." Dec 8 Sheriff Clarke talked about "fake news" on Fox & Friends. Dec 9 Kellyanne took her turn.
@kevinroose 14. Bill O'Reilly also jumped on the "fake news" bandwagon on December 9, 2017. Remember, Trump didn't start using the term regularly on Twitter until January 10, 2017.
@kevinroose 15. So if I had to guess, and this is just a guess, the authoritarian usage of "fake news" which has become so ubiquitous since January 2017 started in Infowars land in 2015, migrated onto Fox in Dec 2016 via Dan Bongino (who worked for both), and then went from Fox to Trump.
@kevinroose 16. Here are the questions I still have. When Kellyanne and Fox and Friends started talking about "fake news" a month before Trump started doing so, was this part of a coordinated media strategy to "get ahead" of the real, very bad news they knew would be heading their way?
@kevinroose 17. If that is what was going on, might it be possible that Fox News conspired with the WH to stave off public scrutiny of Trump's Russia ties, scrutiny which they knew would be coming?
@kevinroose 18. Might this have anything to do with Trump's decision to hire former Fox News executive Bill Shine in July 2018 to serve as his deputy chief of staff for communications? washingtonpost.com/politics/forme…
@kevinroose 19. Here's a great thread by a historian tracing the deeply rooted connections between antisemitism and charges of "fake news." Trump's attacks on the media are just the latest chapter of a long-running story.
