Polly Baker - The first viral case of fake news.
Polly Baker - The first viral case of fake news.
The year is 1747, newspaper were becoming a big thing in the world, with more and more newspapers appearing all across Europe and of course across America (well the American colonies at that time).
In London the newspaper “General Advertiser” published a story about a woman named Polly Baker. The story was about certain speech that Ms. Polly Baker had said during her fifth trial for having a bastard child (she had been already trialed for having 4 bastard children) at the courthouse in Connecticut.
The paper included the transcript of Ms. Baker speech, on which basically she said that she had worked hard in order to support her children without the help of anyone and that she had sacrificed her public esteem for her children and she had never ever requested anyones support nor affected anyone by having her children. The news stated that the speech was so powerful that the judge at her trial ended up marrying her the next day.
This story was so popular that a lot of newspapers in Europe ended up copying it. Even years later the story was still being brought up by different newspapers in the old continent and also in America, where you would think someone had the decency of researching about the trial in Connecticut, but no one did and the story caught on being published by more papers, some even adding a little touch by including that she had fifteen children with he judge.
Years later in 1770, almost three decades later after the story’s initial publication, a french author by the name “Abbé Raynal” published a French history book that included the story of Polly Baker. Mr. Raynal sold his book as the most fact based book that could have been written. Some years later, while the American revolution was on its prime, Mr. Raynal made a visit to the American representative in France, Mr. Benjamin Franklin, who was discussing Raynal’s book with a colleague from Connecticut. Just as Raynal stepped inside Franklin’s office, his hosts started pointing out how many errors where on Raynal’s book. One of said errors was the, already old, story of Polly Baker, which they assured never happen, but Mr. Raynal expressed that he had reliable source which confirmed that the story was true. Mr. Franklin started laughing at Raynal and said that it was impossible because he himself had invented the whole Polly Baker story.
And that’s how one simple story managed to stay true for a lot of years, being one of the first cases of a viral fake news.
I don’t remember the book where I read this story, I’ll let you know if I find it.
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