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Journalism of Courage
Well, they do say that reality is stranger than fiction (think about some pretty recent heads of state elections if you want examples), so it wouldn’t be completely out of the world if we believed a news agency quoting a news report quoting another news report regarding a married couple who found out they were twins when they went to an IVF clinic because they were trying to have a baby. (Phew!)
As this rather bizarre, fit-to-be-made-into-a-movie story stormed the social media space over the weekend, another news report quoting another report that tried to trace the said couple now claims the story may not have been true at all.
The story apparently first published by the Mississippi Herald last week, and was then picked up by many websites and news agencies, which was further circulated by others, including the indianexpress.com. The original piece, which did not carry a byline, came from an unnamed source who was from an unnamed hospital in Jackson, Mississippi.
After the original piece went viral, many US-based news sites went looking for the source of the news to little avail, as most attempts terminated at a dead-end. Similar to the news report of the man who dressed up as a Santa to fulfil the last wish of a terminally ill boy which made waves during Christmas 2016, this story too seemed to have too many holes in it, which has now led many to believe it could all be farce. Sites such as the Mirror, Fox News and Metro have also claimed the story now seems false.
Though confirmation of either is still awaited, cases such as this bring to the fore the increasing danger of falling for fake news, highlighting the dilemma of today’s follow-the-trend news flow which makes it even more difficult to sift out the alternate truth from the actual. An increase in fake news sites have also added to the problem.
So, while we debate the pros and cons of fake news flows and judge the veracity of the articles we read, we can at least afford to be a tad bit amused at the bizarre factor of news such as this.
