"For years — to take one example — I had lamented the tragic death of Little Mikey of Life cereal fame. According to everyone in my school, he died when he mixed Pop Rocks candy with Coca-Cola. The resulting chemical reaction caused a grisly stomach explosion, and Mikey passed into the Great Beyond.
"But after decades of grief, Snopes lifted my heart. Mikey lived, his real name was John Gilchrist, and as of 2012 he was the director of media sales at the MSG network. For good measure, in that very same article, Snopes revealed that my favorite gum from childhood did not, in fact, contain spider eggs.
"Snopes, however, was not content with performing its vital public service of debunking crazy rumors and easing childhood fears. It had pretensions to be something more. It took the cultural goodwill built up over years of truth-telling and decided to make a real difference. It kept fact-checking urban legends (Is the “zombie chicken” video real? Click here to find out), but it also began fact-checking politicians and news sites, and conducting its own investigative reports. For a time it entered into a relationship with Facebook to help combat “fake news.” Thanks to this pivot, Snopes is — and has long been — one of the most powerful and influential fact-checkers on the Internet.
"And that brings me to one of my favorite websites, the Babylon Bee. It’s distinctly conservative, it’s distinctly Christian, it’s very, very funny (especially if you’ve grown up as an Evangelical Christian), and it’s obviously, clearly satire. Click on the site, and the banner advertisement describes it as “fake news you can trust.” By contrast, the well-known secular satire site The Onion calls itself “America’s finest news source.' ” . . .
Snopes may want to fact-check all this:
- California Considering Tax On Breathing
- Chick-Fil-A Employee Seen In Cranky Mood
- CDC: People With Dirt On Clintons Have 843% Greater Risk Of Suicide
- Marianne Williamson Not Sure What She's Doing Up Here With All These Crazy People
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