You've probably seen this story in its original uncorrected form.
Couple jump to their deaths because they 'can't afford' health care
A couple jumped to their death in Murray Hill early Friday. — Manhattan parents struggling to pay their doctor's bills jumped to their deaths early Friday
The corrected version makes it clear that's a lie. The suicide note has been made public and it mentions nothing about health care.
A law enforcement source at the scene told The Post that authorities at first believed that the couple struggled with health care costs. But an NYPD spokesman said later that there was no mention of medical-cost struggles in the notes.
Of course it doesn't matter now. Once a story takes off, it takes off. It gets copied a dozen times over, reproduced on a hundred thousand Facebook pages, and it goes viral. And then it goes away.
That's the M.O. for the kind of everyday fake news that we're dealing with. The stories aren't long term. They're short term narratives that are meant to last for a few hours while tapping into a larger narrative.
Take the Trump Jr. meeting that the media was briefly obsessed with and then dropped once it was clear that it led to Fusion GPS which led right back to them. But the story had accomplished its goal.
The new propaganda is destructible. It's built for an ADD readership. It reinforces a narrative without ever having to be true.
And it's everywhere.