JACLYN SPIEZIA
Staff Lampoonist
With fabrications spinning out of the White House left and right, you need to put on your trench coats, grab your magnifying glasses and start spotting fake news. Rather, you could just learn some of these tricks people at the Lampoon recommend. That’d be cool, too.
Here at the Lampoon, we understand that it is difficult to distinguish between fact and fiction. Look at these three statements. Only one of them is true: Game of Thrones’ Samwell Tarly to fatally die in next episode; Kim Kardashian rushes to hospital with North West; Man swims into ocean to escape police, encounters shark.
With headlines as intriguing as these, where do we begin?
Here are seven steps that can help:
- Always expect the outrageous. It wouldn’t be news if it was something casual, would it? The reason it’s news is because it’s fascinating.
- Don’t worry about sources — fake news can come from anywhere. Even CNN! Donald Trump said so! If anything, be more concerned with sauces. You don’t want to eat anything too spicy while digesting some good information.
- Anonymous writers and bloggers are more likely to tell the truth. It’s so much easier to be honest when no one knows who you are! Who is Gossip Girl? That’s a secret I’ll never tell. Xoxo, Gossip Girl.
- Don’t be afraid to trust people. Donald Trump Jr. said he was being transparent! Bill Cosby said he was innocent! Why don’t we just believe them?
- If a lot of people are saying it then it must be true. Everyone has to be getting this information from some reliable source. Vaccines really do cause autism! If everyone is jumping off a bridge, you should follow, since they are obviously all hopping onto a yacht!
- You can tell the information is real if you want to hear it. Things are only true if we want them to be true. Donald Trump wants Mexico to pay for “the wall,” so Mexico just has to.
- You make me love you. I guess this doesn’t have anything to do with sources, but I’m feeling this Miley Cyrus throwback reference.
Now that you know all of this good information, you will easily be able to spot fake news. Now you will have realized the true story above was, “Man swims into ocean to escape police, encounters shark.” I’m betting all of you GOT fans are relieved. But how do you really know that I’m not fake news? That’s a secret I’ll never tell.