Why fake news is almost impossible to kill

IF we can learn anything from the latest triple-bank-shot of a conspiracy theory coursing through the alt-reality media - this one involving the unsolved murder of a Democratic National Committee staff member named Seth Rich - it's this: Fake news dies hard.

God knows people have tried. In the last few months, journalists, academics, technology experts, civic-minded foundations and well-intentioned politicos have devoted decades of collective brain hours to an all-hands effort to stanch the conspiracy theories and outright falsehoods roiling our democracy.

Facebook and Google have worked up new computer formulas and dispatched dedicated te…