“Journalism is printing what someone does not want printed, everything else is PR” ironically applies to charges/countercharges of fake news too. It’s one idiot printing what another idiot does nor want printed.
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In both cases the mere hostility of a party with power is taken to be a proxy for truth. The heuristic is good for personally threatening news about stuff like corruption or crime. For matters of general factfulness, it’s basically noise.
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If I don’t want “birds aren’t real” stories published it isn’t a sign that the theory is true.
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while maybe not a good signal for factfulness strong hostility of a powerful entity towards a given story seems like a good signal for that entity perceiving the matter as a threat.
Maybe if the NSA puts out "BIRDS ARE REAL!" adds you should stop and wonder what's up with that.

