Facebook Fact Checks Santa Clause
The world’s most famous newspaper editorial, published in the New York Sun Sept. 21, 1887, could get busted by Facebook.
In an effort to stamp out the scourge of fake news, Facebook is outsourcing fact checking to PolitiFact and others .
Facebook Fact Checks Santa Clause
The editorial in question (by me) was in response to a letter to the editor from eight year old Virginia O’Hanlon:
DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
Papa says, ‘If you see it in THE SUN it’s so.’
Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?VIRGINIA O’HANLON.
115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET.VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy…
You can read the rest of the editorial here at the Newseum site.
“If you see it in THE SUN it’s so.” – Maybe.
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