From Kim Jong Un being named the sexiest man alive, to Canada’s legalization of medicinal cocaine, satirical news sources such as The Onion and The Daily Currant provide America with dry humor and endless laughs.
  Unfortunately, that satirical style isn’t always evident. In fact, these “news sources” have a tendency to fool journalists themselves.
  In 2012, a columnist for The Washington Post used The Daily Currant as her source for a story about Sarah Palin becoming a contributor for Al Jezeera. When The Onion declared Kim Jong Un the “sexiest man alive,” the North Korean government ran the story as fact.
   How exactly do these sites fool journalists and governments? To the untrained newsreader’s eye, these websites look like legitimate news sources. However, if you scroll to the bottom of The Daily Currant’s website and click the About link, you’ll quickly find a statement which declares that it is, in fact, a satirical newspaper.
  The Onion, on the other hand, provides no statement of its satirical nature. The extreme changes in the weather and the outrageous headlines are the only ways a reader can deduce that the site is not a reliable source.
    While there is no malice in the content of The Onion, The Daily Currant and the like produce, the convincing style in which their articles are written can obviously perplex anyone.
  If governments, journalists and columnists can be fooled by these publications, it comes as no surprise that citizens post and share stories from the sites as factual. Such confusion could be avoided if satirical news websites were required to state on their front pages that they are, in fact, satirical.
  The Onion even advertises itself in a mocking way. “America’s Finest News Source” provides stories in sports, politics, business and entertainment. It does not, however, provide an About page or any information in regard to the contributors of the site.
   Though the most obvious way to keep false stories from being reported as true is for journalists and citizens to do their research, the easier solution is for these sites to provide a statement, whether at the top or bottom of the front page, that declares their stories are fictional.
   No matter the content or topic of a story, we as readers are obligated to check the facts before we share the link. If an article seems to be of national importance, but big-name news companies such as “CNN,” “Fox,” USA Today or even Associated Press haven’t reported it, you can probably bet that it’s fake. And no, “BuzzFeed” is not a reliable news entity.
  Fact-check your story before you share it and you eradicate the risk of enduring that dreadful moment when someone corrects you. In doing that, you eliminate the chance of other people sharing the same inaccurate  story. Fact checking saves everyone from embarrassment.