Dishonorable, shoddy, or dishonest work, especially writing; the practice of a hack or mediocre worker.
From hack (a writer or worker of poor quality, originally from hackney horses used for routine work) + -ery (a common English suffix meaning practice, behavior, or place of). The word evolved to mean fraudulent or unethical behavior in general.
The word 'hackery' perfectly captures why journalism has a reputation problem—for centuries, 'hacks' were writers willing to write literally anything for money, no standards attached, which created the idea that news could be unreliable.
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