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Last week I read a story in my news feed about the correlation between IQ and choice of internet browsers. Feeling superior that as a Chrome user I was clearly in the IQ elite, I emailed the link to a few friends and I went on to a different story chuckling to myself (Internet Explorer and I have a sordid past). However, it seems that this story was a fabrication, a figment of some talented writer's imagination. Such a story if posted on the Onion or Cracked would have still made me chuckle and the venue would have been appropriate and no doubt generated some interesting banter in the comments. What is disconcerting is not the satire, but that the writers would try to pass this off as a legitimate story to mainstream press and that mainstream press would post without doing fact checking first. According the BBC, their readership raised questions about its authenticity, not their editors. In this age of the 24 hour news cycle are we losing sight of solid journalistic practices? As readers are we willing to consume information blindly just because it comes from a national or international outlet? All good questions for you to be asking as you will be setting the standard in years to come.
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