NPR

A Book On 'Bunk' For Our Post-Truth Times

Poet and critic Kevin Young attempts to make sense of a worsening surge in hoaxes — from plagiarism to fake news — in a new deeply researched history.
<em>Bunk </em>is the new book by Kevin Young.

It's no secret that the United States is going through a "post-truth" or "fake news" moment.

There are people in this country who continue to believe that former President Barack Obama was born in Kenya and that the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were an inside job. Fake news went so far as to persuade a North Carolina man to storm a Washington, D.C., pizza parlor with a high-powered gun after he started following an elaborate online hoax linking Hillary Clinton to a nonexistent child trafficking ring.

Essayist and poet Kevin. It's a subject partly inspired by a firsthand experience with a former colleague.

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