Did you hear the story about Kim Jong Un’s uncle being eaten by dogs? Of course you did everyone heard that story. Every western publication wrote something about it. It started with a blog post from NBC, and took off from there.
And maybe it’ll come as a surprise to you now that it’s not true.
As long as there’s been an internet, there have been hoaxes, but 2013 was the year those stories started showing on Facebook en masse. (And once they’ve gone viral on Facebook, they’re impossible to stop.)
But the people on this list are storytellers and reporters and in 2014, I’m not going to allow you to get tripped up by another hoax. There isn’t a simple web tool (yet) to help you debunk a myth you saw on Reddit, but there are two books that can help you better understand the web, and understand how a Kim Jong Un-type story spreads.
The first is called “Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator,” and it shares some of the secrets that one marketer has used to build buzz for his clients. It’s eye opening, and it’ll leave you skeptical of a lot of what you read online. The Kim Jong Un story is essentially ripped straight from the pages of this book.
The second book is much older from 1985, actually. It’s “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business.” It’s a fascinating look at how media has changed as we’ve moved from print to radio to TV. The book doesn’t talk about the modern web, but it will put you in the right frame of mind to understand how we got here and why journalism works the way it does. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read on modern media.
Ultimately, though, it’s all up to you. It’s up to you to be skeptical, to verify sources, to pick up the phone and make a call even if you’ve seen a story published a few dozen times online already.
Reporters came away looking pretty bad in 2013, and 2014’s off to a rough start. It’s time for us to start doing better.
Now get out there and tell some great stories today!