Journalism, truth and the restoration of trust in democracy: tracing the EU ‘fake news’ strategy

Trust in journalism in Europe and beyond has been undermined by a series of scandals, by the closeness of journalists to political parties and government, but also by more frequent attacks against freedom of speech and of the press run especially by populist leaders and new authoritarian governments. In some countries, like Hungary, Poland and Italy, the press freedom index is in steep decline, and governments have also entered a ‘war’ with journalism, putting increasing pressure on the free exercise of the profession, restricting budgets and the autonomy of public service broadcasting. In our chapter, we critically discuss the responses, i.e. counter-strategies, for trust-(re)building that this disruption triggers, from a top-down European Union (EU) policy perspective. We assess the EU’s response to the authoritarian and fake news challenge and discuss the limits of a voluntary (self) regulatory approach in light of public sphere standards.