I don't think fake news is anything new. It used to be called "tabloid newspapers" when print news was standard.

There have always been faux-newsy publications with stories like "Hillary Clinton gives birth to three-headed alien."  "Hillary Clinton running child sex ring in pizza parlor basement," is somewhat coarser, but that reflects social change in the last few decades. Things that used to be considered depravity now mainstream. "Hillary Clinton is on death's door," every time she sneezes; that one's been around for years. I saw it during the 1992 campaign.

Is it new that people use these stories in political discourse, as if they believed them to be true? No, it is not. I distinctly remember somebody telling me he couldn't vote for Bill Clinton in 1996 because of his involvement in hushing up that three-headed alien baby Hillary had given birth to.