FROM THE FAKE NEWS CRISIS TO THE CRISIS OF JOURNALISM: THE EUROPEAN UNION’S APPROACH
FROM THE FAKE NEWS CRISIS TO THE CRISIS OF JOURNALISM: THE EUROPEAN UNION’S APPROACH

Summary/Abstract: This article discusses the relationship between the fake news phenomenon and journalism, which goes beyond the impersonation-based mechanism. It traces the current vulnerabilities of journalism – due to economic and technological changes –, and it argues that they facilitate deceptive journalistic practices, fake news being one of them. The article takes European Union’s mobilization against fake news as a point of reference. What particularizes the EU’s approach is that the threat of fake news is (i) correlated with the awareness of the weakened state of journalism, and (ii) is expected to benefit news media organizations. Amongst EU’s initiatives, a new copyright Directive (2019/790) will grant a special provision to press publishers which will allow them to negotiate license fees from digital platforms.

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