JOHNSON CO., Ill. - It's as if there are some agent provocateurs out there ensuring that the "fake news" posts are going viral as 2017 kicks off, maybe in an effort to justify Facebook's "war on" same.
Since this weekend, we've been questioned several times about a couple of rampantly-viral pieces that, on the surface, look perfectly viable and that pertain to southern Illinois, traditionally known as the wasteland of news even though there are indeed things that happen around here that you just can't make up (but that no one covers except us; hit a couple of Print Headlines pieces to see the kind of stuff we cover that no one else will, such as this, this and this).
The first report that we fielded I-don't-know-how-many queries about over the weekend was a child reported missing from Harrisburg. Apparently not enough people were willing to look any further than the headline and search for a dateline (where the material in the article took place) so that they would see it was Harrisburg, PENNSYLVANIA, not Harrisburg, ILLINOIS, and it was being shared around as such.
But yesterday took it.
The images you see here came from a site which we will not link because to do so might prompt the site to get undue attention. Here are, however, some images that have been sent to us:
I mean, don't click it. Don't go there. There's someone in the woodpile who WANTS this to be as big as it's apparently getting, either at the behest of the powers-that-be (Fecesbook, so they can say "See?? TOLD ya there were 'fake news' sites out there causing problems!" to justify their latest libwhack crusade) or despite them (as in, "Imma post this and see what Fecesbook does about it, then get em in trouble when they shut me down!!")
Either way is bad form....because people don't need to think even for a second that that plane that crashed Saturday night, December 31, in Johnson County was shot down. We have enough spurious things going on in and around the area for this to be a trending, viral piece.
Sure, there are 'fake news' sites out there. They're easy to detect...one of our stringers sent us something the other night about some guy who was supposed to be some kind of celebrity (we'd never heard of him, but apparently he's somewhat famous) having a car breakdown in Marion and someone coming to his rescue and taking him to Cracker Barrel for lunch. Cute story. Fake as heck. There WAS no dateline on it...nor a posting date, for that matter, which immediately set off our red flags. Cleverly done, well-scripted, but false. The site, as it turned out, is a kind of parody site; you can detect that on your own by hitting the 'about' part of the page. Parody and satire are not "fake"; they're just not valid news.
The problem comes in that when someone sees a posts from a page like ours, where we publish stuff that people don't like to read about themselves, and they start raising a fuss, they think that all they have to do is lump us in with the "fake" news sites and complain, and that'll fix it.
It won't. It'll just exacerbate the problem, because an established news outlet of 14 years like ours is has the means and the right to fight back, and whoever made that initial claim could be held liable (responsible) for any obstruction of business that such a thing would create (you can't obstruct/tamper with/harm businesses in the state of Illinois; it's a tortious claim and private businesses like ours can sue).
However, sites like the ones that suddenly seem to be popping up from out of nowhere promoting stuff that could be real but simply is not...it's like you can't get rid of them. And the proliferation of them is going to cause problems for non-state-supported (TV, radio) media outlets like ours, which is independent, successful...and few and far between.
So use caution. Don't randomly share; for crying out loud, at least look for a dateline and a date/time stamp. If there isn't one, be suspicious, but be smart. I know that's a tall request for some folks these days when 'dumb' seems to be the order of the day, and the fact that you're reading this is a strong indication that you're not among that number. But help out those less intellectual than you...like and share REAL news, go looking, verify, check it out....set a good example for those who aren't. Southern Illinois will be a better place because of it.