Falsehoods about Mayor Michelle Wu are spreading — now what?

That's the journalistic conundrum of the misinformation age. Ignore false allegations, and they can fester and spread in the shadows. Shine a light on it, and you might help amplify it.
This isn't a new dilemma — journalists were unsure how to cover the smear campaign about John McCain's so-called 'love child' or the insidious lie about president Barack Obama's religion.
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But social media has turbocharged the spread of misinformation, and journalists have less and less time to respond and fight the barrage of fake news posts. And as we enter into a local election season, the stakes keep getting higher.
So, how do you debunk a lie without spreading it?
In a 2018 white paper about what she called the '
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'Whenever you see candidates who are women or women of color, you often see their identities used against them. It's often in local races,' Wardle said. 'The argument is that, by giving people warning, you're saying, 'You're going to see rumors circulating in small community groups, so be aware.' You're trying to build resilience so you're not ignoring it.'
(Wu's main opponent, Josh Kraft, is Jewish — and in the current environment, you should probably be prepared for mis- and disinformation about him, too.)
I reached out to the
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In an email, a spokesperson for Wu told me that the named individual is a US citizen who is civically active, is part of the
Wardle told me that misinformation tends to grow in local communities because people have an emotional tie to their neighborhoods. As for strategies to cope with potential misinformation, she recommends audiences 'just stop and recognize that people who are trying to fool us are taking advantage of our emotions.'
Other recommendations include doing a Google search to see if other newsrooms have mentioned the potential fake news post in question; reading laterally — meaning to read many different sources on the same topic; and visiting the 'About' page of the news site to learn more about who's behind it and when it was established.
In the end, the best defense against disinformation may be transparency — not just from politicians, but from journalists too. That means acknowledging the risk of repeating a lie, while also trusting readers enough to tell them the truth about why we're calling it out. But responsible debunking — grounded in facts, context, and care — is still journalism's best answer.
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This is an excerpt from
, a Globe Opinion newsletter from columnist Marcela García.
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Marcela García is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at

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