Fake news isn’t new, but it was never like it is now

West Kelowna’s Reed Turcotte has released his latest book, Touch of Fake News, just before the change in government in the U.S. and made it available to read online for free.

“Everybody is talking about fake news,” he said. “It’s the No. 1 thing in the media, especially with Donald Trump”

Now retired, Turcotte draws on his experience from 39 years of owning newspapers and magazines throughout Western Canada and the United States.

“The old media that includes myself, puts out and still does put out in particular a lot of fake news, but it's more real and it’s more honest fake news than say social media serves up these days,” said Turcotte.

Turcotte used journalists and academics for most of his sources, whittling down from more than 300 sources on fake news for the book.

“If you read this book, you’ll be able to get to know what fake news is, how to spot it and who does it,” said Turcotte.

To give the book a little more human interest, Turcotte also added a couple of chapters on his start in the business, some of the gimmicks he put in that were creative but borderline fake or fake.

Touch of Fake News is Turcotte’s eighth book since he retired.

He finds writing a combination of a hobby as well as therapeutic.

He called Touch of Fake News the easiest book he has done because there’s so much on fake news of disinformation in the media.

“As you look into it more and more it’s kind of scary at times,” he added.

Launched last Monday, the book already had 2,100 visitors by the end of Friday.

Touch of Fake News and Turcotte’s other books are published by his own Boundary Creek Printing and Publishing Company Limited, which he kept when he sold his magazines and newspapers as he prepared to retire.

Turcotte said if authors are lucky, three or four thousand people will read their book.

He chose to distribute his book for free to make it accessible to readers.

“I want many thousands to read it,” he said.

He noted his most popular book, When Canadian Newspaper Publishers Were King, the Rise and Fall of the Fourth Estate, had over 30,000 readers.

Turcotte calls himself a controversial editor, writing his editorials the way he saw things whether or not it was popular.

In 2013, he was accused of being racist over an editorial he wrote in the Morris Mirror in Manitoba regarding Indigenous people during the Idle No More movement.

You can read Touch of Fake News for free online at touchoffakenews.ca.