Last week, a Twitter account claiming to be run by a breaking news expert in Tennessee posted a somewhat plausible and want-it-to-be-true item about Colgate freshman standout Jordan Burns allegedly missing the team flight to Columbus, Ohio, for Friday's NCAA first-round game against Tennessee and deciding to hop in an Uber for a 500-mile drive to join his team.
The tweet from @RGW_News was viral enough (more than 2,000 retweets and 14,000 likes as of Friday morning) that I remember seeing it Wednesday night as I browsed my timeline even though I don't follow that account.
Turns out the story was completely fake, which isn't a surprise but does offer social media cautionary tale No. 589,430 about not believing everything you read.
A few CBS sites were duped, and the story spread quickly enough that Burns' mother believed he had actually missed the flight.
Read Michael Rand's blog at startribune.com/randball. michael.rand@startribune.com.
