Fake News vs. “Foke” News: A Brief, Personal, Recent History

Russell Frank is both a folklorist and a journalist. He earned his PhD in Folklore from the University of Pennsylvania and worked as a reporter and editor at newspapers in California and Pennsylvania for 13 years. He is Associate Professor of Communications at Penn State University, where he has taught journalism since 1998. His publications include Newslore: Contemporary Folklore on the Internet (2011), Among the Woo People: A Survival Guide for Living in a College Town (2017), and freelance articles in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and elsewhere.