On the FakeBook President and fact checking
The story on the Facebook fake president made a lot of noise in France and now outside France. While i was writing the story for TechCrunch it reminded me of an excellent movie based a on true story called "The Hoax" i strongly recommend.
The movie is about a man who pretends having the exclusive rights to write the auto-biography of the unapproachable tycoon Howard Hughes. Both stories have in common that media bought a story that looked credible and so big that it was hard to believe this could be a prank.
But it was. and in both cases serious (but simple) fact checking was missing. This is a basic principle of anyone who should write a story whether this is a journalist, a novelist or a blogger. This is not the most interesting part but a sine qua non condition.
It sometimes takes time (probably the part that takes me most time when i write a story), it is boring, but it is a necessary. You can sometimes do mistakes but missing some facts or getting the wrong one. But the process is on top position of the to-do list.
Matt Hicks from Facebook PR department sent me an message yesterday about the story and was happy that users and readers eventually realized that this was not in any way affiliated with them. But this could have been easily avoided.
Fact checking is a basic requirement and a mark of respect to your readership.
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