You may have seen this story as it made the rounds this week.
If not, here it is from this morning at The New York Post. The gist is that upon his recent passing Corona beer founder Antonio Fernandez left $2.5 million each to 80 residents of his Spanish village, Cerezales del Condado. The heartwarming story went viral, as you might expect. It’s a great story! An extremely wealthy person deciding to give back to his or her tiny community? That’s a perfect story. Too good to be true, even.
The Independent reports that residents hadn’t received the millions that they’d reportedly been set to inherit. Nor will they; apparently it’s more likely to go to Fernandez’s family and extended family, which is a much more typical story.
“It’s simply not true, unfortunately,” said Lucia Alaejos from the Fundación Cerezales Antonino y Cinia, a cultural centre that was founded in the village with the benefit of money from the foundations.
“Many of them still visit for some months each summer, so it is great for the village and keeps it alive,” Ms Alaejos told the Local. “But the villagers won’t be sharing in that inheritance directly.”
But, it’s not all bad. Fernandez helped fund churches and cultural institutions and left his millions to his children who visit the village regularly. It’s not the amazing story some initially made it out to be, but Fernandez’s generosity will continue long after he passed away.
That said, the world’s media certainly didn’t hesitate to run with a report that was apparently quite untrue. Apparently the fake news dilemma isn’t just an American problem, as the BBC, The Telegraph, and many more outlets picked it up.
In their defense, it really would have been an excellent story.
