And so it went on CNN; the network appears to have spent more time on the Air Force Academy story than the other networks combined. But others joined in the Silveria-Trump comparisons, like Apple CEO Tim Cook, who tweeted, “This is what leadership looks like.”

Now, as everyone knows, there’s an update to the story. The cadet candidate who reported the racial slurs has admitted that he was behind the whole thing. It was all a hoax. The young man, who is black, has left the academy.

Anyone who follows such incidents, certainly anyone in the news business, should have known that there was a substantial chance the Air Force Academy vandalism was a fake. Too many such incidents have turned out to be hoaxes not to raise suspicions about new ones, pending the results of an investigation.