YES: Harry Potter Knew the Fake News Media Is the Enemy of the People: The 20th anniversary of the first film is an occasion to recall J.K. Rowling’s inspiring political agenda. “As a fan of the books and films who had not revisited them in quite some time, I had always remembered how unflatteringly Rowling portrayed the government of her fictional world. But I was surprised to rediscover another entity that is absolutely savaged in the Harry Potter universe: the mainstream media. Rewatching the films this month for the first time in years, I was particularly struck by how much fake news was printed in the pages of The Daily Prophet. . . . It is the wizarding world’s version of the mainstream media; it is also an ever-evolving source of lies and propaganda.”

Related: My friend Ben Barton’s Harry Potter and the Half-Crazed Bureaucracy.