| Claim |
| In August 2021, Snopes’ co-founder and CEO David Mikkelson was revealed to be a serial plagiarizer, sloppily violating copyrights of other publications in an attempt to make the site look extremely proactive in uncovering news. |
| Rating |
 This is True |
We start with a story from this week’s column:
When muckraking New York newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer died in 1911, he left a $2 million endowment to Columbia University. To this day, Pulitzer’s name is best known for the resulting Pulitzer Prizes, given each year in multiple categories by the university.
This year, This is True was under consideration for the Prize in three categories.
I Am Guilty of posting “Hate Speech” on social media …according to Facebook’s algorithms and whoever (or whatever) reviewed that declaration when I appealed.
In This Episode: A story in This is True struck me as an astonishing example of Uncommon Sense, so I thought I’d tell you about it to see some really out-of-the-box thinking, and provide some practical advice that could save your life. Here’s a hint: no one thinks they’re going to get lost and need rescue. Yet there are tens of thousands of rescues every year in the U.S. alone. What will increase your odds of being safe? Uncommon Sense.
An academic’s “history” of “Florida Man” makes some startling — and completely wrong! — claims about how the “Florida Man meme” got started online. No, it wasn’t in 2012, or even the “mid-2000s”!
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After seeing this morning’s Randy’s Random post about Covid-19 (reproduced below), I got this comment by email from an old friend, Terry in Colorado:
In This Episode: You really don’t need willpower, and relying on it for change is a recipe for failure. So how can you succeed at the things you want to change without it being so danged hard? Well, a psychologist who has studied willpower says there’s a much, much, better, and easier, way.
Florida Man Marco Mazzetta is an absolute obliviot, so why would anyone want to follow his example? Well keep reading, because Florida Man Michael Popper followed Mazetta like he was a recipe. [Jump to that 2022 Update]
The lead story this week is mind-blowing …especially to me as a current first responder medic and former deputy sheriff. Here, I go through the incident step by step to show just how fast the deputy had to react — and make a life-altering decision along the way.
Two recent This is True stories demonstrate the “Streisand effect,” and this page brings those two stories together (plus a third from 5 years ago), and then leads to more commentary on the “effect.”
Let’s start with the first of the two recent stories, from True’s 8 December 2019 issue:
A story in this week’s issue needs a lot more room for explanation, not to mention a full-sized copy of the graph involved. First, let’s start with the story, from True’s 17 May 2020 issue:
The Scenario Discussed in my blog post Stay Put looks more and more likely: that pressure on government officials to let businesses “open back up” is growing, and it’s way too early for that.
I’m Sure You are Dying to Know the story behind this week’s extra-weird Headline of the Week (Issue #1310, 21 July 2019):
Updated 9 August 2025
It was 50 years ago Saturday that Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong piloted the Eagle — the first manned lunar-landing spacecraft — to the surface of the moon.
Be careful what you ask for, since when an organization asks the public for input on what they should name something, they’re opening a Pandora’s box.
Another story that “can’t” go into the newsletter since it will trigger filters. This one isn’t “adult” in nature, but you’ll understand the filter issue when you read the story.
Actor Luke Perry Died today after suffering a “massive stroke” on February 27. I was alerted by Megan, my 39-year-old niece. She enjoys reading her local Crime Blotter (and posting funny entries she sees), and she, her dad, and I have a text group where we try to scoop each other on reporting about someone interesting who died. Now and then, I even get a good Honorary Unsubscribe out of it.
Today’s Randy’s Random Meme is My Take on recent headlines, like “Disregarding Health Warnings, Arizona Lawmakers Move Forward On Vaccine Exemptions For Kids” and “Texas Lawmaker Hays He’s Not Worried About Measles Outbreak Because of ‘Antibiotics’” and “Measles Returned To Costa Rica After Five Years By French Family Who Had Not Had Vaccinations” — which are all recent.
Update: The Restaurant Pho Keene Won!
Sometimes, I’ll Look at the Comments on a news site’s story that I use as a source for a True story. Not very often, since most news comments are a vast wasteland, but the comments on one of the Pho Keene stories I read caught my eye. The top comment was, “Who knew that Keene lacked a sense of humor?” And there was one response: “Anyone that lives here.” Let’s start with the story, from True’s first issue of 2019: