But now let's have some fun and check out some of this month's cracking headlines on News.com.au and the Daily Mail:

'Short, disappointing, and shameful': People who waited until their WEDDING NIGHT to have sex reveal all about their first time in VERY honest confessions — Daily Mail, 23 April, 2017

Pilot reveals terrifying tale of a near disaster experience, while 19 passengers remained blissfully unaware — News.com.au, 5 April, 2017

'I lost 12 hours of my life and I have no idea what happened': People who are convinced they've been abducted by aliens share their VERY bizarre stories — Daily Mail, 19 April, 2017

Unbelievable eh? And with one thing in common, they're all ripped from Reddit.

Aka the "Front page of the internet".

Which is a huge and mostly anonymous online forum, famous for aggregating the good, bad and the weird and sending it viral.

Like this salacious story from last year:

Woman takes to Reddit to beg users for advice after finding out she and her fiancé are HALF SIBLINGS, revealing that her partner has known for a YEAR, but hid the truth for fear of losing her — Daily Mail, 15 December, 2016

That turned out to be not true. As if you couldn't guess.

With the author of the fake news story telling Crikey:

... it was a hoax designed to expose how the media shamelessly rips and repurposes anonymous Reddit posts with no attempts at verification. — Crikey, 16 December, 2016

And had any journalists bothered to check the story before jumping into bed?

Not according to the hoaxer.

... press outlets like The Daily Mail , The Herald Sun , Uproxx , and many others did not reach out for comment/verification and did not mention that they failed to do so. — Reddit, 16 December, 2016

So, did journalists learn from that mistake and clean up their act?

No. Two weeks later they got caught again.

Melbourne landlord blasted for installing coin-operated toilet — News.com.au, 2 January, 2017

Stingy landlord makes tenant pay per flush — Ten Play, 2 January, 2016

And this time Seven even got its panel of in-house 'experts' to discuss the yarn:

EDWINA BARTHOLOMEW: Nick it's a bit rough to expect tenants to pay one dollar to flush the loo... NICK McCallum: Of course it is, but I'm worried about inflation ... — Channel Seven Sunrise, 2 January, 2017

So was a landlord out there really making you pay per poo?

No. And by the time Seven went to air, Reddit users had already realised that the story smelt.

Please let this be a statement about fake news... Also hi to Media Watch. — Reddit, alphabeat, 1 January, 2017

Hi to you too!

So did Seven, Ten or News Corp check before putting the toilet on the telly? No. The hoaxer told Media Watch.

The only media outlets to contact me about the story ... were The Age and BBC News. — Email, Jacob, Toilet Hoaxer, 26 April, 2017

And they decided not to publish when he did not respond.

So has the Australian media now learned not to recycle Reddit as fact-based news?

No again.

During April the Daily Mail published 33 stories pilfered from Reddit users, or more than one a day.

Mamamia, meanwhile, is up to 23 this year and News.com.au has run 18, including this story two weeks ago about penis-patterned pillows, based on a post from a user called Waffle Twat.

So why do they do it? Pressure of time, space to fill and clicks to get.

And as one former Daily Mail staffer told us anonymously, they are encouraged to do it.

The editors were instructing us to go on Reddit daily ... You don't want to do it but it's a way to get clicks easily. — Ex-Daily Mail reporter, 28 April, 2017

And were they told to check? Not exactly.

Once a video had been posted on Reddit ... I thought it looked fake and I said to an editor, "Are we sure this is legit, it might be fake?" The response was, "who cares when it will get the clicks." — Ex-Daily Mail reporter, 28 April, 2017

That is the motto it seems of a lot of modern online news, as it struggles to stay afloat.