The story, originally told on Reddit, is an absorbing one, true or not. A man is in line at a Burger King, when he encounters a bratty kid behind him, loudly demanding apple pie from his mother. The man in front turns around and calmly asks the mother to please quiet the kid down. The mother tells the man he can’t tell her anything about how to raise a child and for him to mind his own business. When he goes to order, he decides to ruin the kid’s (and mother’s) day by ordering every apple pie the restaurant has in stock. The mother then gets to the cashier and asks who bought all the apple pie. The man exits the store looking triumphantly back at the mother, who is enraged that her kid won’t get any pie.
It reads well, and Eater and then Gawker and it spread from there.
Of course, there are parts of the story that don’t quite hold up. How did the mother think to ask right away who had bought all the pies? And how did the man get his order fast enough to be nearly out the door by the time the mother was asking where the pies went?
The thing is, few news sites that picked up the tale of revenge questioned the veracity of this Reddit story. Hundreds, if not thousands, of sites are now, by posting it, calling it truth. Could this be a hoax? Absolutely! Will we know? Not unless someone asks.
This year has been rife with hoaxes already. Back in March, the world learned that North Korean students were required by law to sport the same haircut as Kim Jong-Un. Except that was a rumour.
Early last month, the “hot mugshot” felon reportedly landed a modeling contract, until a journalist simply phoned his publicity agent and found out he didn’t,
In early January, smog was reported to be so bad in China that people could only watch the sunrise on TV screens. The infamous photo was actually used in a travel ad.
The lesson to be learned in all of this is simple — if a story sounds too good to be true, it very well might be. A simple email or phone call can prevent a journalist and news organization from embarrassment for running these stories in the first place. If you’re going to report on a story that originated on Reddit, do everyone a favour and call all info “alleged” until you can verify it.
