Why do rumors spread so fast?

The point of journalism is to tell the truth, state the facts; this is the case for both mainstream and independent media. Although independent media isn't always as credible or trusted as mainstream media, they are still held to the same standards. In this modern era, with the invention of the Internet, information is just a click away.

This means that fact checking should be easy for any media outlet and that anything suspicious or not confirmed should not be published, in my opinion. Without fact checking, how can we ethically print something and present it as fact?

The story about President Bill Clinton's illegitimate son proves that without fact checking, stories that are untrue can come back and blow up in your face. In this case, the Drudge Report took this story and spun it, presenting information that did not exist, and creating parts of the story that were less than factual. The story was picked up by the mainstream media and became huge news in just a short period of time and the world believed the allegations to be true.

It was later revealed that Bobbi Ann Williams (the mother of Clinton's so-called "son") was paid off by Star for her interview. Not only was it revealed that she was paid off, but years later the real results of the DNA results came out; the test was negative and Clinton never fathered Williams' child.

The thing that is so amazing to me is how fast a story like this can spread, but how slow the media is to finding out the truth. After the story broke, it wasn't until seven years later that they found out the truth. You would think they would want to find out the truth as soon as possible. Not only that, but that they would find out the actual truth before going ahead with publicizing the story. Getting the results of a DNA test shouldn't be THAT difficult, and getting the results if Clinton is really innocent shouldn't be a problem.

This reminds me of Stephen Glass and the fact that he got away with partially or fully fabricating 27 of the 41 stories that he wrote for the The New Republic, along with more that he wrote for other prestigious magazines, such as George Magazine They had fact checkers, yet for years he got away with false stories, because they only checked his notes. They didn't go on the internet (which they had at the time) to double-check that these stories were factual.

Although the story with Bill Clinton broke in the early 90s when Internet was young, these things still happen today when Internet is at its prime and one of the easiest and most used forms of fact checking and communication. It baffles me how far a false story can go in the mainstream media before it is shown to be false.

In society today, with all the technological innovation that we have, there is no reason for false stories to make their way into mainstream media, or independent media for that matter. This should be even more true during presidential elections. Clearly there are going to be rumors that come out in order to try to smear a certain politician and hurt their campaign, and if we don't wait until we can actually print the truth, we are giving into what people criticize independent media for being, unreliable.

Independent media itself is not unreliable, but certain websites may be, certain blogs may be as well, but when trusted news sources such as the Drudge Report (or somewhat trusted) and the mainstream media to a certain extent are picking these things up without getting the full story, that is where we need to be concerned.

Check out the facts, find out the truth, use the amazing thing called the Internet. False reporting can be avoided, especially with all the technology that we have today.