A New York City high school student makes $72 million playing the stock market? The headline offered the promise of a story that was almost too good to be true. Turns out the teen, Mohammed Islam, made up the whole story. It joins an increasingly long list of prominent stories unraveling due to fact checking. Missouri School of Journalism professors Earnest Perry, Mike McKean and Amy Simons discuss the issue on KBIA's media criticism program, "Views of the News."
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The story picked up traction quickly, with the teen appearing on CNBC, only to reveal later he had not, in fact, made $72 million. Professor Mike McKean said while the teen did fabricate the story, the blame falls to New York Magazine.
"New York Magazine should have known better. I mean, come on, they wanted to believe this story because it fit in with their [Reasons to Love New York 2014] story."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5ePbkwk1iM
Professor Earnest Perry agreed, saying media organizations look for "feel good" stories around the holidays, but that reporters need more due diligence overall.
"It goes back to the old adage of 'if your mother says she loves you, check it out.' And I think that we really need to go back to that."
Professor Mike McKean said while no real harm was done in this instance, the incident was indicative of problems with verification in the media, and the same forces were at play in the Rolling Stone article.
"I suspect the reporter and the editors wanted to believe that at a fraternity house there could be this horrible gang rape of this poor student... they wanted to believe it so they didn't do the due diligence on the story."
