Facts Matter: Manure dumped on boss's suburban lawn — false
Does it matter?
Each of us is faced with a constantly changing barrage of information. Some items are journalistic and fact-based. Some have a highly partisan spin. Others are lies masquerading as news.
During a commencement speech at Rice University in Texas this month, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said there is an “epidemic of dishonesty” in America, according to The Associated Press.
“When we tolerate dishonesty, we get criminality,” he said.
Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson didn't mince words during a commencement speech Wednesday at the Virginia Military Institute.
Referring to a “growing crisis in ethics and integrity,” Tillerson said accepting alternative realities will put American citizens “on a pathway to relinquishing our freedom,” Politico reported.
As part of the Daily Herald's Facts Matter campaign, this column will take a weekly look at the authenticity and truthfulness of some reported stories.
Manure dump in DuPage
A story about a Clarendon Hills lottery winner arrested for having $224,000 worth of manure dumped on his former boss' lawn is false, according to the fact-checking website Snopes.com.
World News Daily Report ran the story stating that Brian Morris, 54, paid for the manure dump after winning $125 million in Powerball.
The story included a mug shot of a smiling man, said to be Morris but actually a different man from a 2014 story about a DUI arrest in the village, Snopes.com reported. The account also included a quote from Morris. When asked how he would spend his winnings, Morris replied, “Just read the news, you'll see.”
Snopes.com concluded Morris is fictional, as is Clarendon Hills Police Lt. Frank Meyers, who was quoted in the story.
The World News Daily Report's website includes a disclaimer that its stories are fictional and satirical. Yet, the story was shared from World News Daily's Facebook page more than 56,000 times.
KKK photo not in NYC
A recent Twitter post claiming “The Democrats created KKK” accompanied a photo of a Ku Klux Klan march, with the caption: “This photo was taken at the 1924 Democratic convention. It was known as ‘Klanbake' (just in case you want to Google it).”
The tweet from Kambree Kawahine Koa received nearly 10,000 likes and almost 1,000 replies.
But there was no Klan march at the 1924 Democratic convention held at Madison Square Garden in New York City, according to The Washington Post. The photo was taken in Madison, Wisconsin, during a protest by the group.
Klan representatives attended the New York convention and on the second day of the event, a New York Daily News reporter published a joking announcement that the “Klanbake steamed open at 12:45,” The Washington Post reports. An “exhaustive search” found no other reference to Klanbake until a 2000 historical story about the convention. Continued use of the term, matched up with the photo in 2015, has made it synonymous with the 1924 event in some political circles.
Khamenei browses book
Although past reports of foreign leaders reading about President Donald Trump have been fabricated, a photo showing the Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reading “Fire and Fury” seems to be genuine.
According to Snopes.com, pictures showing the Ayatollah reading a Persian translation of Michael Wolff's unflattering account of Trump's administration were from his visit to a book fair May 11 in Tehran.
The photo was shared on Khamenei's official Instagram account and appeared on the official government website of the Ayatollah.
The camera can lie
A picture can be worth a thousand words, even more if it's fake.
Marcio Cabral was disqualified as a winner of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year award after judges said it was “highly likely” his image of an anteater next to a termite mound included a taxidermied animal, according to <URL destination="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/27/photographer-disqualified-wildlife-competition-winning-picture/ ">The Telegraph.
</URL>After presenting the award, the Natural History Museum of London was contacted by an anonymous source saying the animal in the winning image resembled a stuffed anteater on display at the visitors center of Emas National Park in Brazil, where the photo was taken.
Cabral denies the photo was faked, but couldn't supply any other photos of the anteater, the Telegraph said.
Facebook page fake
Canadian broadcaster Global News reported a fake Facebook account was created in the name of Canadian Ryan Straschnitzki, a hockey player for the Humboldt Broncos who was paralyzed in a crash involving the team's bus on April 6 in Saskatchewan, Canada. The account included photos of Straschnitzki in the hospital with his family.
A fake Twitter account followed with a GoFundMe account asking for donations. The family has stated the accounts are not real and they are hoping to find out who is responsible. Both accounts have been taken down.
It can be hard to tell whether reports contain false information without extensive fact checking, but several organizations aim to help users know what is real. The News Literacy Project, a nonpartisan group, seeks to teach students and adults how to sort fact from fiction. And The Washington Post and Associated Press frequently update fact-checker analyses.
It's important to know if information is genuine. False claims or fake news stories lead to sharing inaccuracies, which can be followed by inappropriate and unnecessary actions.
“A responsibility of every American citizen to each other is to preserve and protect our freedom by recognizing what truth is and is not, what a fact is and is not, and begin by holding ourselves accountable to truthfulness, and demand our pursuit of America's future be fact-based,” Tillerson said during the Virginia graduation ceremony.
Real news, containing factual information, does matter.
• Bob Oswald is a veteran Chicago-area journalist and former news editor of the Elgin Courier-News. Contact him at boboswald33@gmail.com.