Writers, Read This Before You Believe the Next Viral "RIP" Post
A Denver Broncos beat writer woke up "dead" in December - at least according to Facebook. An AI-generated image showed him holding a child with a big "RIP" stamped across it. He wasn't dead. He didn't have a child. But the post traveled.
The page behind it, "Wild Horse Warriors," had built 6,200 followers and pumped out around four fabricated Broncos stories a day before Facebook took it down. One post even claimed wide receiver Courtland Sutton refused to wear an LGBTQ armband - another falsehood with real reputations on the line.
This isn't an isolated glitch. Around the same time, Google's AI Overview falsely labeled a Canadian folk musician a convicted sex offender. He lost work. That's the cost of synthetic mistakes at scale.
What This Means for Working Writers
Your byline is collateral if you rush, assume, or repeat anything that looks "official." AI makes forgery cheap, fast, and convincing. Your edge is disciplined verification and tight editorial behavior.
A Fast, Repeatable Verification Loop
- Pause before publishing. If a claim triggers emotion (shock, outrage, urgency), slow down.
- Find the primary source. If a person is named, contact them or their representative. No response? Say so in the piece.
- Cross-check at least two independent, credible sources. Screenshots don't count as sources; they're prompts to investigate.
- Interrogate images. Run reverse image searches, check for odd hands, warped text, inconsistent lighting, and context mismatches. A quick visual forensics pass prevents a mess. This guide is a solid starting point.
- Be careful with AI summaries. AI Overviews can drift or invent specifics. Click through to original sources before citing. Learn how AI Overviews are generated.
Editorial Guardrails That Save You Later
- Ban AI-generated images of real people for newsy claims. If you use synthetic visuals, label them clearly and never tie them to a real person's alleged conduct.
- Create a 60-second pre-publish checklist: source count, contact attempts, image verification, headline accuracy, platform context (original post, page history).
- Write headlines that report, not conclude. "Report claims…" plus verification status beats "X did Y" when facts aren't nailed down.
- Log your verification steps in the draft. Future you (or your editor) will thank you.
Protect Your Name Before You Need To
- Set alerts for your name and key beats. Screenshots and timestamps everything questionable.
- Claim handles on major platforms and pin contact info for corrections.
- Keep a short response template ready for editors and readers: what's false, what you've verified, and where to send evidence.
- When defamed, document, ask for takedown, and publish a clear correction note on your owned channels.
The Pattern to Watch
Low-effort pages can amass followers by posting confident fakes several times a day. The speed looks like authority. Then a claim lands on someone's reputation and sticks.
Your job isn't to outpace the feed. It's to be trusted. That means building boring, repeatable habits that catch the nonsense before it touches your work.
Level Up Your AI Literacy (Without Losing Your Voice)
AI can help with research prompts, outlines, and drafting - as long as you stay in control of facts and framing. If you want curated tools and training made for writing work, these resources are useful:
Bottom Line
False "RIP" posts, made-up controversies, and sloppy AI summaries aren't going away. But neither is your responsibility to publish clean work.
Build the verification loop. Set the guardrails. Protect your name. That's how you keep writing that earns trust - and keeps it.
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