Thousands saw a story that two girls were rescued from a tree in the Texas flood. It was fake.
As torrential rains slammed central Texas and the death toll from the resulting floods grew into the dozens over the weekend, rumors started to spread online about a sliver of good news.
Two girls had allegedly been found alive in a tree near Comfort, Texas. The “crusty, embittered, grouchy journalist” in Louis Amestoy, editor of The Kerr County Lead, was skeptical — but the messages he was getting about the miraculous rescue wouldn’t stop, he said. An on-the-ground social media report from a volunteer seemed to corroborate the story. After sending a reporter out to investigate and hearing from what he said were multiple self-described eyewitnesses, the Lead ran with the story Sunday, which was subsequently shared both locally and nationally.
The only problem was that the story was not true. “100% inaccurate,” as a local sheriff put it.
Related Knowledge Center: Fact-checking and its detractors
Fact-checking has become a familiar tool for political reporters to hold office-holders and candidates accountable. But critics ask if fact-checkers sometimes miss the forest for the trees, and if the practice often struggles with false equivalency the way conventional political coverage does.