Becky Johnson: Don't believe everything you see on Facebook

Apr. 24—First things first: there was not a homicide at Los Amigos restaurant this weekend. Nor anywhere in Waynesville. And nope — no carjacking either.

But let's back up for those who weren't privy to the rumor that spread like wildfire across Haywood County on a drizzly Sunday afternoon.

My phone dings.

"Do you know anything about a carjacking and/or homicide at or around Los Amigos? No idea if it's true, but there's a post on Facebook."

Before I can fire off a text of my own to our cops and courts reporter Aarik Long, who's usually the first to hear of such things, my phone dings again.

"There was a homicide at Los Amigos," it reads.

As suspected, Aarik was already on it. He, too, had picked up on the Facebook traffic and reached out to Waynesville police. There was no murder, no carjacking, no crime even committed.

The rumor got its start on the Facebook page of Waynesville News, run by Robert and Heather Stokely. Don't get me wrong: they play a valuable role in the media landscape of Haywood County.

And the misinformation wasn't their fault. While Waynesville News does some of its own reporting, it also relies on crowdsourcing. Anyone can post on the site, and it goes live without being vetted or verified.

This works great for quickly getting the word out when there's a power outage, lost dog or traffic back-up on I-40, but not so much when folks shoot from the hip without facts about something as important as a homicide.

Here's how it played out:

"Anyone know what happened at the Mexican restaurant by Stereo Innovations? Lots of cops and EMT," a poster asked on Waynesville News.

"Carjacking," someone replied.

And two posts later, a single word: "Homicide."

Eventually, more than six hours later, the folks at Los Amigos posted a clarification.

"A beautiful and sweet family were having dinner and one of the family members went into cardiac arrest. Luckily, we had a few heroes in the room that stood up and immediately started CPR and kept taking turns until help arrived."

But the horse was long since out of the barn. Folks who saw the initial post on Facebook were making posts of their own. All afternoon and evening, prayers had been going out across Haywood County for the homicide victim and the staff of Los Amigos.

A wild goose chase spurred by social media plays out almost weekly in our newsroom. Rarely do the rumors rise to the level of a murder, but we diligently check them out nonetheless. Occasionally, they're true. But the vast majority are half-truths, exaggerations and suppositions at best, and outright untruths at worst.

Ironically, The Mountaineer is often accused of a cover up for failing to report on something that never happened. The cops or the mayor are hiding something, and The Mountaineer is in on it.

It's easy to see why folks come to that conclusion, however. Surely all those people on Facebook can't be wrong.

But that's the problem with the echo chamber of social media: folks repeat the same story until it's taken on a life of its own, like a giant game of telephone.

Trust in traditional media outlets is an all time low, according to a Gallup poll last fall. Only 32% of Americans have "a great deal" or "a fair amount" of confidence in media reports. And a record-high — 39% — say they don't trust the media at all.

Yet, folks seem all too willing to believe a post they see on Facebook made by someone they don't know.

Here at The Mountaineer, we have a team of trained, professional journalists who wake up every day, roll up their sleeves and hit the trenches to report on the news for their local community. And we, too, rely on Facebook — including our friends over at Waynesville News — to get wind of things.

But that's only the start of our news gathering. We fact check, we verify, we call multiple sources. And only then do we post.

Sometimes that means we aren't first — and being first is critical in the fast lane of today's media industry.

But being first isn't everything. It's more important to be accurate. And that's what we'll hang our hat on every time.