"Hate" Stories in the Social Networking World ...

Hadn't seen the original story, but a couple of Facebook friends shared the follow-up. New Jersey waitress who garnered much attention as a result of one of those "There Won't Be a Tip and Here's Why" instances found her story being challenged, and it turns out the numbers/evidence sure don't appear to add up ...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/26/family-anti-gay-receipt-hoax_n_4343563.html

Is it getting to the point in this over-shared world that you really can't (or shouldn't) believe ANYTHING that's shared by a potentially interested party?

 

Yes. We are long past that point. I believe nothing that begins on social media or primarily advances through it. Seriously. Nothing.

 

I ALWAYS check the link first and see where it came from. So many of these "hyper" shared links --- many of them with the subject line of THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!!!! --- come from fringy websites with real-sounding names that people who are not news-savvy might fall for.

 

Unfortunately that doesn't even work now, because "respectable" media outlets pick up the bullshit stories and run with them all the time.

A huge percentage of these stories are hoaxes.

Remember the lady handing out letters to fat kids on Halloween? She didn't exist. How many news outlets ran stories about her? I know mine did, and pretty much every other outlet I saw. But you never saw an interview with her, because she didn't exist.

 

This is utterly predictable. These local yokel tv stories about somebody writing something on a receipt have become ubiquitous. It was only a matter of time until someone tried to dummy up something to get some sympathy/fame/donations.

 

Really?

I mean, I'm not surprised, but I hadn't seen that.

 

Ask all the women beaten and murdered by their husbands every Super Bowl Sunday.

 

The entire source for the story is a call to a Fargo "Morning Playhouse" radio show, hosted by "Rat, Zero and Maggie." A woman who never gave her last name claimed she was giving out the letters. The show apparently is known for its fake caller pranks. The show later claimed it had obtained a copy of the letter. It never returned calls from people looking to confirm it, and no one else ever found the woman. Even the local paper mentioned it was obviously a hoax, but every outlet nationwide picked it up and ran with it.

Ever see the YouTube clip of the woman calling a radio show to say the deer crossing signs should be moved to a safer area for the deer? That was the same radio show. Once again, a woman with no last name who no one ever found, and the radio station wouldn't comment.

 

And now the truth comes out..."Dayna Morales, "has a reputation for lying," according to former colleagues and friends."
http://gothamist.com/2013/11/27/receipt_saga_server_lied_about_havi.php#photo-1

 

I heard this cited by a lawyer in court once. (not my case). Amazing how urban legends never go away.

 

One Super Bowl Sunday we went out to the sewage treatment plant to do a story on whether it was true that it flooded at halftime. The guy working there said "No, but you should be here on Valentine's Day. We get condoms bobbing out here like jellyfish."