Martin Luther King Jr’s Guide To Spotting Fake News
“I HAVE a dream, that someday people on the internet will be able to tell the difference between genuine current affairs, and wild speculation-slash-outright lies,” began Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, speaking exclusively to WWN via a magical basin that allows people in our time to look into 1967 by just filling it with water and sticking their face in it.
Outraged at the volume of potentially harmful ‘fake news’ stories buzzing around on social media in 2016, the legendary civil rights figure gave a few key pointers that the internet users of today can use to determine what is fact and what is made-up.
“Take a long, hard look at what it is you’re reading,” said King, speaking to the ghostly liquid-metal esque image of the WWN staff that appeared in his bedroom mirror out of nowhere.
“If it seems that the writer of the piece if trying too hard to push one side of the story instead of presenting both sides equally, then you’re dealing with someone with an agenda. And a journalist with an agenda is never going to be impartial to both sides of the argument”.
Dr. King paused to eat an entire pineapple, skin and all, before continuing with his lesson.
“Fake news is a powerful thing; it can be used to sway the public in a direction that they would not otherwise lean towards if they had the full facts of the matter,” he continued.
“So there are people who stand to gain a great deal by clouding the facts and by making sure that news outlets ‘play along’ with what they want to present as truth. Simply put; never blindly take anything you read from a media outlet as gospel. Use it as a starting-off point for your own research on the matter, and come to your own conclusions instead of the conclusion that someone higher up wants you to come to”.
Before we had a chance to tell him that 6:01PM on March 29th, 1968 would be a really good time to tie his shoelace, Dr. King engaged his rocket-booster backpack and blasted out the window of his room, severing the time-travel link between our worlds.