‘Rationality Seems to Have Fallen Out of Vogue’: Snopes’ Managing Editor Talks Fact-Checking With NYT

Depending on who you ask, fake news is either rampant or not a problem at all. Facts either don’t exist or are the absent element that newscasters need to do their best to inject into the national conversation. For the people who run popular fact-checking site Snopes, fake news is nothing new, but it’s definitely seen an intense renaissance lately.

The site’s managing editor, Brooke Binkowski, said this in an interview with the New York Times:

Rationality seems to have fallen out of vogue. People don’t know what to believe anymore. Everything is really strange right now.

Her site is 20 years old and long focused on urban legends about razor blades in Halloween candy and various celebrity death hoaxes. During the 2016 election, though, it became the de-facto fake news buster as conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton‘s health, the intentions of Muslims on Twitter, and so much more abounded.

Lately, conspiracy theories and fake news about Snopes and its founders have been emerging, too. Binkowski said she isn’t going to stop pushing back on falsities no matter what.

“At least until someone shows up at my workplace and kills me,” she said.

In light of a man firing a weapon in a family restaurant after reading and wanting to “investigate” a fake news story, that statement holds more weight than ever.

[image: screengrab]

Lindsey: Twitter. Facebook.

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