That is satire. The Onion puts outs out satirical content where the reader is supposed to understand it is fake news even before reading any of it. It is comedy, in the traditional sense... to make you laugh.
The fake news discussed here is deceptive in nature. It is made to be believed by the readers, as if it were true.
The best defense against deception, is knowledge.
Which is the definition of a lie. If those lies are politically motivated they are called propaganda.
There is nothing special or new about any aspect of these so called fake news.
That is just a term given out to the always angry idiots with torches and pitchforks.
Common knowledge can be altered. But I guess critical thinking and an understanding of the scientific method and journalism is what you meant.
Well it would have been best for you to post the syllabus or have been more specific.
If you want to be an awesome student, pick a topic you think is settled on. Like global warming, then do a meta presentation about how truth is subjective and few things our media reports on have objective truth. Anyone who tells you their model of climate change is accurate or that American domestic policy can shape the climate without a doubt is ignorant or lying. Your teacher won't like that conclusion, easy to back up tho. Adds a bit of spice
If you feel uncomfortable with the thoughts above another obvious topic would be this "chemical weapons" attack in Syria, that's some pretty obvious fake news if you follow the source. Just some organization ran by a Syrian expat sitting in the UK. Our corporate media is very susceptible to reporting "fake news" that gets them views. And the majority of our society just seems to buy the conclusions wholesale with no cynicism.
If you want to be lazy, just try to tailor your assignment to whatever you think your teacher wants. If she's a centrist democrat vox is a good place. Ezra Klein is sort of a joke but they do some good work
The realization that "fake news" is effectively deception, and that this is not a new development in the world of information, is already addressed in the posts above me. Yes, I read them all before posting.
If "common knowledge" is altered, it can be altered in a good way or a bad one. The good way means you broaden your understanding of a subject; the cornerstone of an advancing intellect/knowledge.
Common knowledge that is altered in a bad way, to a point of error, is effectively "ignorance". It ceases to be knowledge.
I didn't. Just needed a point of reference to give my two cents.
Common knowledge isn't knowledge at all in my understanding. But I might be wrong on that interpretation. I thought it is just what the majority of people believes to be fact.
You should go through the thread, there are some really good posts.
The loosened definition of "common knowledge" would probably stem from the first part of the term: Common. Knowledge will always be... an understanding of that which exists. You could even expand the term knowledge to include the vast amount of life that is still unknown (or undiscovered) by us; a situation of knowledge existing even if humans don't know about it yet.
Examples of what I consider common knowledge:
The world is round/a sphere. Woohoo for air travel!, cameras and less common: math
The world revolves around a star. Telescope anyone?.. and math again
We need air, food and water to survive.
etc...
Things we actually know. Things that the majority of individuals have direct access to; readily available evidence of.
I would argue that common knowledge does, in fact, have to be knowledge. If everyone still thought the world was flat, it would not be common knowledge. It would be common ignorance.
Ultimately, it's about power and control. Read Orwell's 1984, if you haven't already.
I made a mistake by writing
What I should have written is common knowledge does not have to be factually true, like all knowledge.
At some point in time everyone knew that the earth is flat. Not a believe but knowledge because it was observable. It was wrong but it was common knowledge at that time.
Anyway, I think I made clear what I meant.
Hey i was wondering if i could read your oral speech?
Man he would have a TON of material on fake news if it was due tommorrow 
Do you realize your "source" to cite fake CNN new stories is the literal definition of a fake news outlet?
Is this bait or something? There's something wrong with you. 
Was about to say that also. Anything with truth, or war, or collective, or any variation of these terms in a URL rings so many bells and raise so many red flags.
I think he is just trolling. I have seen him post to these terrible excuses for news outlets repeatedly. I just wanted to call it out and see what kind of response he might give.
I watched Alex Jones like 10 years ago for a short spell. Similarly to that Sargon of Akkad dude, it did not take long to realize that it is demagoguery. These types of guys may have a sliver of truth presented on any given topic, but they will soon twist that sliver into a less than honest narrative.
I give people a chance, to hear what they have to say... but Jones spouts literal lunacy.
You could start with this
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-27/cnn-exposed-undercover-sting-producer-admits-russia-story-fake-news-pushed-ratings-0
A producer at CNN admitted that the entire Trump Russian narrative is nothing more than ratings bid, based on nothing but innuendo and hearsay
This is not a discussion, it is hate
I'm gonna ignore you.
For anyone else, even Perez Hilton says CNN is "Fake News"
So let me get this straight. You're using a video made by a literal fake news outlet run by a convicted sociopath to prove that CNN is fake news, meanwhile the fact that CNN retracted one of their stories and three of their employees resigned because of that story doesn't mean anything to you. Are you trolling or are you just so stupid that you actually bought into Trump's retarded brainwashing narrative? Because there literally is no third option here.
There's a pretty big and clear difference between fake news and sensationalism. CNN is guilty of the latter.
Man, I don't think he is trolling. 
So how would you qualify telling people that "it's illegal for you to look at wikileaks, only us "journalists" can because we have special permissions", or airing a "call for peace" that 30 seconds later turned into a call for violence?
Editting down a video to remove things that do not support a certain narrative, is hardly sensationalism. It's very much fake news. Or if you want to use the correct term, Propaganda.
CNN has been documented time and time again, just making shit up, or cherry picking parts of stories and leaving out pertinent information. As has Fox News, as has MSNBC. All three easily qualify as "fake news".
Seems like the only way you can really trust a story these days is if there is video evidence backing it up. These are businesses, they do whatever they have to in order to get views, and they have almost no integrity at all.
Seems like you could figure this out for yourself if you did some actual research instead of just believing whatever salon.com or NPR or MSNBC tell you to believe.
(I am in no way saying that anything like Infowars should qualify as news. I'm saying that CNN, MSNBC, and Fox are all about equal with Inforwars)
(Also, I am in no way saying that Trump is trustworthy on anything.)
Our bias and hatred is being used to divide and distract us.
...and how to you qualify citing Infowars in order to shed light on the less than honest practices of corporate news outlets?
Corporate news has an agenda to improve their bottom line, 99% of the time. Their influence is used to make it easier to land cash in the pockets of the owners/funders.
No one here said that CNN was honest. The paradigm of what is "fake news" has shifted to the point where people here are using actual fake news outlets to try and prove corporate news is "fake news".
Your president has cited Infowars FFS... this shit is hilarious. If you are going to call out CNN, NBC, CBS, etc... do it right.
You really don't know what fake means, huh? Infowars is fake news. Don't equate Infowars to corporate media. There is fake news spanning across the entire political spectrum, all across the world.
I was essentially saying that, only I'm saying that Fox and CNN are just as bad as Inforwars, just better funded.
I see little difference between making shit up out of thin air, and editting out anything that doesn't support their narrative. Dishonesty is dishonesty.