Concern about fake news and its effects on our personal and corporate lives has probably never been higher. But the fake news epidemic has a lot of moving pieces, and it’s not always easy to see the big picture. HxA Member Justin McBrayer offered a unified, interdisciplinary explanation for the fake news epidemic that centers around the idea of an information marketplace. A free market naturally gives rise to fake news since (a) producers, disseminators, and consumers of news often have incentives misaligned with the truth and (b) even when they don’t, their cognitive equipment makes it easy to make mistakes about newsworthy subjects.