“We weren’t interested in doing a story about the ‘fake news’ that is invoked by politicians against the media for stories that they don’t like or for comments that they don’t like,” explains producer Michael Radutzky in the 60 Minutes Overtime video above. “We’re using the term ‘fake news’ to describe stories that are provably false, have enormous traction in the culture, and are consumed by millions of people.”

“What we are talking about are stories that are fabricated out of thin air,” says 60 Minutes producer Guy Campanile. “By most measures, deliberately, and by any definition, that’s a lie.”

The 60 Minutes team found that people who fabricate stories do it for different reasons. For Jestin Coler, the man behind the fake news sites National Report and Denver Guardian, making up the news was “fun.”

One of his successful stories was about an Ebola outbreak in Texas that never happened. He admits he was trying to get readers to believe it actually occurred — and wound up acquiring 6-8 million page views on a series of related stories, which he referred to as the “Fearbola campaign.”

For Coler, watching his audience grow and the website hits accumulate was gratifying.

“He said he did it because it was like an addiction,” Radutzky says. “The more hits he got, the more of a rush it was.” [READ MORE]