The term was adopted by Trump as a way of subverting its then-emerging use to label the phenomenon of propaganda being produced supporting the Trump campaign following what a RAND Corp report has described, in its recent application by the Russian government, the “firehose of falsehoods” model (at the time this was seen as analogous to the Russian use of that propaganda style; it's since become clear that at least some of it was, in fact, Russian state propaganda, making it following a current style of propaganda observed in Russian state propaganda less surprising.)

Trump's adoption of the term to preempt that use was very successful, as is evident in the common perception that it is something he invented.

Nope, not coined by Trump. I did a bit of research. I found "fake news" in this link from 2005 on democracynow.org: https://www.democracynow.org/2005/3/14/state_propaganda_how_...

I'm not trying to say that people who use the term now are using it in place of "pizzagate", but that media outlets, during the months of December 2016 and early 2017, used the phrase to talk around "pizzagate"; and now "pizzagate" has faded, but "fake news" remains.

I think propaganda is a more appopriate word, and we should just use that. But because of the way associations work, whenever I see "fake news", I am reminded of "pizzagate". And I know I'm not the only one.

Thanks for setting me straight.

I find the term juvenile, personally, but it's here to stay for now it seems.

As I recall he (mis)appropriated the term, as is his habit. It wouldn't be surprising if tomorrow he started talking about how "woke" he is and how that adjective actually doesn't mean what we think it means. "Fake news" was originally a term for news-like narratives from sources other than the news media.

You're thinking of "alternative facts", which came from his presidential counselor, Kellyanne Conway.