I saw this image floating around social media.

I'm pretty sure that this is fake.

For a number of reasons:

1. It looks constructed
2. It is never accompanied by a link
3. It's not attributed to any magazine

It IS attributed to a writer, however: Clarisse Loughrey.

So I looked her up an it turns out she's a writer for The Independent. I refined my search to include her name, "The Independent", and the full title of the article in question.

The only results were meme sites.

So I asked Clarisse Loughrey herself

I found her on Twitter and asked her about it:

To which she responded:

Here's the source article that was photoshopped:

• Star Wars 9: J.J. Abrams will direct Episode IX, after Colin Trevorrow fired

The lesson of the story...

1. Don't just believe everything you see. It's very easy to fake things.
2. If you think something is fake, look into it yourself -- more likely than not you can find the truth if you just spend a little effort investigating for yourself.

Share your thoughts

There really is an epidemic of fake news. It comes form the mainstream media, alternative media, and regular people with a mischievous streak.

In this case, I was able to debunk a meme that was going viral that was simply made up with about 5 minutes of research and not being afraid to ask a question.

What do you think?

Follow me @shayne