For the last 12 hours the biggest thing on the internet has been that Google is releasing its own operating system. Dubbed Chrome OS, it will compete with Microsoft Windows, and with Linux distros like Ubuntu. A set of screens went around for a private developer beta. These pictures were fake. They were part of a prank. See the below video. (I give credit to Zoli Erdos from Cloud Ave for telling me that the whole thing was a prank: http://www.cloudave.com/link/prank-os-chrome-prank-prank-chrome-whatever...) This was a prank. Pranks are harmless. Pranks are not excuses for bad journalism. Reputed blogs gave multiple articles on the supposed new OS. I don't know if the original news of Google Chrome OS is even real (they have mentioned it on their official blog, so it might be accurate: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html). Everything was reported as real news because very little was done to fact check. Google Chrome OS joins Steve Jobs' health as evidence that maybe those journalists who are being replaced by bloggers are, in fact, needed. Now consider who distributes information in your project. Do you fact check when your report tells you that Use Case #37 is 75% complete? With email communicating faster than the phone, and with chat communicating faster than email, it is very easy to spread unsubstantiated news in a project. What have you got in place that controls the spread of fake news in your project? Here is the video if you want to see for yourself.