Misinformation: the example of the boy in LGI

The last couple of days have brought another example of the power of misinformation, showing how fast it spreads, and the disruption and mistrust it can cause at times of political tension. The Yorkshire Post (a very long established regional newspaper in the UK) published a story and photo of a young boy in in Leeds General Infirmary lying on the floor because of lack of hospital beds (Yorkshire Post Comment, 2019). The UK has a general election tomorrow, and the National Health Service (NHS) has been a big part of the debate. Yesterday the current UK prime minister was asked to comment on the photo, but instead kept talking and pocketed the reporter's phone. Now read on.....
Following on from this, tweets started to appear alleging that the photo had been staged, and that the information that it was staged had come from a friend who was a nurse at the hospital (i.e. trying to convince readers that this was authentic on-the-spot "truth"). This tweet became viral, with retweets from politicians and nasty criticism of the boy's family as well as of the newspaper. It then became evident that these tweets were misinformation: the person who had apparently written the original tweet said her account was hacked.
The Yorkshire Post responded later the same day (Collins, 2019), emphasising that the original story had been carefully researched, including a statement from the hospital with an apology, and talking about the problem of misinformation "Our team of reporters will fact-check and verify information at the highest level before it is published - yet anyone can hide behind the guise of a fake profile and tweet out spurious claims without a single check. We will be accountable - nobody will take accountability from a fake account."
The Yorkshire Post's editor also published (Mitchinson, 2019) the "open letter" sent to a reader who had said that she no longer trusted the Yorkshire Post because they spread fake news. He says how journalists checked the facts and ends on an impassioned note "Whatever you do, do not believe a stranger on social media who disappears into the night."
The overall "fake news" story has been summarised and commented on in several places e.g. The New York Times (Satariano, 2019) and the UK's fact checking agency (Full Fact, 2019).

References
- Collins, L. (2019, December 10). How the journalists you trust from the YEP defeated fake news and our commitment to fact-checked journalism. https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/opinion/how-journalists-you-trust-yep-defeated-fake-news-and-our-commitment-fact-checked-journalism-yep-says-1337649
- Full Fact. (2019, December 10). These are the facts that we know about the photo of the boy in Leeds General Infirmary. https://fullfact.org/electionlive/2019/dec/10/LGI-photo-boy-facts/
- Mitchinson, J. (2019, December 10). 'Do not believe a stranger on social media who disappears into the night' - An open letter from our editor to you. https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/health/do-not-believe-a-stranger-on-social-media-who-disappears-into-the-night-an-open-letter-from-our-editor-to-you-1-10147697
- Satariano, A. (2019, December 10). A Sick U.K. Boy’s Story Was True. But False Posts Followed. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/10/world/europe/sick-uk-boy-boris-johnson.html
- Yorkshire Post Comment. (2019, December 8) This shocking picture from a Yorkshire hospital shows why honesty is needed on NHS waiting times:
https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/opinion/columnists/this-shocking-picture-from-a-yorkshire-hospital-shows-why-honesty-is-needed-on-nhs-waiting-times-the-yorkshire-post-says-1-10143735
Photo by Sheila Webber: the Houses of Parliament, seen from gardens outside St Thomas' hospital, April 2013.