Why journalists fall for hoaxes
It was Jonathan Walton's training as a journalist that made him susceptible to a $92,000 scam.
“I used to think I could never get scammed. I’m way too smart for that. I’ve got a degree from journalism school. And I read tons of newspapers and books. I know what’s going on in the world. There’s just no way a scammer could outsmart me, right?
“Wrong. Because con artists don’t outsmart you. They ‘out-feel’ you. They use your emotions to gain entry into your life so they can rob you.” — Jonathan Walton, writing in The Huffington Post
I knew Jonathan Walton got himself into trouble when I read his HuffPo headline — “A Con Artist Scammed Me Out Of $92,000. Here Are The 8 Red Flags I Wish I'd Seen.”
But when I read his lede, I knew why.
Journalists are suckers for a good story. They’re suckers for human connection. For details. For human interest. For these reasons, journalists are uniquely susceptible to hoaxes.
Jonathan Walton’s training as a journalist is closer to the reason he was scammed than it was a safeguard. As Feist would say, he feels it all. Walton said as much.
Every hoax in America the past 200 years originated in the news business, or passed through it.
When the world moved much slower, hoaxes were publicity stunts carried out by newspapers.
Consider the Great Moon Hoax of the 1830s, when the New York Sun ran a series of knowingly fake reports detailing “evidence of life forms on the moon, including such fantastic animals as unicorns, two-legged beavers and furry, winged humanoids resembling bats.”
It was all a stunt to sell papers. When people accuse the news of writing fake news to sell papers, that’s because this was once a practice in the news business. That idea owes to history, not imagination.
Modern hoaxes, like the Jussie Smollett “This is MAGA country!” story, are perpetrated on the media.
Hoaxes like Smollett happen when a story is too big to pass on. But its details are too good to be true.
What happens then? Who wins out? Prudence? In a one-horse town, maybe.
But in a competitive environment where if the Chicago Tribune doesn’t run the Smollett story, the Sun-Times will, and if they don’t run it, the TV stations will — and once they do, you’ll have to catch up — it’s not ultimate truth that wins the day. It just has to be “true that someone said it.”
Clicks Rule Everything Around Media. The true bias of the news business is in favor of a sexy story.
This is how a phrase like “believed to be” makes it into newsprint: Because a detail that couldn’t be verified is too juicy to leave out. News outlets large and small mortgage their credibility daily on these choices.
Jonathan Walton fell for the scam because he wanted to believe.
The reality TV producer may have trained as a journalist, but he broke the cardinal rule of reporting: Never cheer for a story.
When Woodward and Bernstein were running hot on the Watergate story, Bob Woodward threw cold water on newsroom speculation about Nixon’s impeachment.
That, Woodward argued, was not their job. As reporters, their job was to learn and report the facts. Ultimate outcomes, like Nixon’s eventual resignation, were for others to decide.
Woodward’s prudence was wise.
Active skepticism would be even better.
When a journalist wants to believe, they’re headed for trouble.
Walton wanted to believe.
Look no further than his sub-headline: “I was charmed by a charismatic, exciting woman who injected herself into my life and became my best friend.”
Walton was a sucker for a good story, about the woman with the vast Irish inheritance (who ever heard of such a thing?) who just needs a few of his dollars until the money is wired. The woman with the drama and the legal troubles, who just needs a few more dollars.
In the end, she got $92,000 out of him.
Journalists spend their days seeing the world through other people’s eyes.
They translate tales of conflict into readable, understandable narratives.
They meet a lot of people and talk deeply with them. To accurately convey what people think, reporters must listen and ask questions.
There can be a level of intimacy that develops. Even a reporter who knows better than to cheer for a story will cheer for a source, on a human level. That’s how it starts. Cheering is cheering. And cheering is bad.
During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, I noticed my interviews were all running long. Everything was 45 minutes to an hour. It’s as clear now as it was unspeakable then: We were longing for human connection.
I developed a fear that one day I’d sign off an interview with “I love you,” as I do with my girlfriend or my parents.
I never did. But if I had, I would have meant it, in that moment. I feel it all, too.
The only thing exceptional about Walton’s story is that someone who attended j-school had $92,000 to be scammed.
Tomorrow, I will write about the worst story I ever published. When I say that reporters are suckers for a good story, I speak from experience.
He fell for the Nigerian Prince scam because they used Irish instead of Nigerian. That's pathetic
We would all benefit from a healthy dose of "too good to be true" in our thought processes. When a story appears that perfectly fits the narrative, or expectation, or situation that should lead us to further question the story teller. Urban legends appear in much the same way outside of journalism.