Yes, and it's reassuring that this method works. It would fail if people didn't use their knowledge (or had really little), or if fake news were as convincing as real ones. The two things can be independent, I think? If fake news get too realistic, your background knowledge becomes useless.
Comments
But polls show that people don't trust (mainstream) news a whole lot, nor do they seem to consume much of it.
So I think at least some of the skepticism we observe is genuine mistrust/ignorance.