Name-calling is about all the left has left in the creativity department these days.
Keep believing in your "Big Industrial Media Complex's" infallibility if you must. Heres a recent funny one. Don't expect to see any retractions. LOL
Blondes Don't Face Extinction, Sloppy Journalists Should
Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2002
newsmax.com
It's time to replace jokes about blondes being stupid with jokes about the stupid journalists who fell hook, line and sinker for a ginned-up story that blondes are facing extinction.
They're not, but news outlets all across the globe reported that flaxen-haired ladies are an endangered species doomed to disappear, leaving only the bleached variety to survive.
"Media outlets around the world, from CBS, ABC and CNN to the British tabloids, delivered the sad news: Blondes are dying out," the Washington Post reports, adding that the media simply failed to check on the validity of a "study" that never existed.
The Media fell all over each other in reporting that a study by the World Health Organization (WHO) had concluded that blondes are headed for extinction.
According to the Post, here's how the media reacted to the news of the study:
"The decline and fall of the blonde is most likely being caused by bottle blondes, who researchers believe are more attractive to men than true blondes," said CBS "Early Show" co-host Gretchen Carlson.
"Too few people are carrying the blonde hair gene to continue reproducing through the generations, says the World Health Organisation," the Daily Mail reported.
"There's a study from the World Health Organization - this is for real - that says that blondes are an endangered species," Charlie Gibson said on "Good Morning America," prompting Diane Sawyer to say she's "going the way of the snail darter."
Oh? Not according to the WHO which told the Post that there is no such study and moreover, that most journalists didn't bother to check with them before running with the story.
"We've certainly never conducted any research into the subject," WHO spokeswoman Rebecca Harding said yesterday from Geneva. "It's been impossible to find out where it came from. It just seems like it was a hoax."
The WHO told the Post they traced the fictitious story to a German wire service, which based it on a two-year-old article in the German women's magazine Allegra. The story cited a WHO anthropologist who, Harding said, she could find no record of any such man having worked for the WHO.
That didn't stop the media from going bonkers over the imminent danger of blondes going the way of the spotted owl:
"According to the World Health Organization, blondes, natural ones, may be extinct within the next 200 years," CNN anchor Carol Lin said, citing a piece by the British network ITN.
"Study Is a Blonde Bombshell," said a New York Post headline.
"Gentlemen who prefer blondes will have to move to Finland - or make do with 'bottle blondes,' " London's Daily Star reported.
"Future generations will never need to wonder whether a blonde bounce is natural - because every one will be from a bottle," said the Express, adding that blondes such as Britney Spears "do have to endure jokes about being vague and a little short on brain cells."
Apparently that applies to some journalists as well, the Post observed.
In the ITN report, correspondent Roland Burke interviewed an Edinburgh dermatology professor who didn't exactly endorse the study. "In the near future, although the number of blondes might drop a little, I wouldn't expect it to die out," Jonathan Rees said.
How did the media explain their failure to vet the story before running with it?
Here's what some outlets told the Post:
CBS spokeswoman Jennifer Tartikoff said the study "was brought up in a casual, offhand manner, not as a hard news story." She says it came up in an "Early Show" segment not carried by 99 percent of CBS affiliates and would be "clarified" for those stations that broadcast it.
ABC spokesman Jeffrey Schneider said that "a London producer called the WHO, which didn't turn him off to the story, unfortunately." The WHO official simply offered to check it out but "didn't knock it down," said Schneider, adding that "Good Morning America" will air a correction.
A CNN statement said it carried the report "from one of its highly reputable international broadcast partners," ITN, and would correct it as many times as the story aired. "CNN regrets the error," the statement said.
Harding told the Post the WHO made no attempt to contact the news outlets that went with the bogus report but decided to issue a news release yesterday.
"Honestly, we have better things to spend our time on," she said.
Too bad that's not true of the journalists who fell for the hoax and spread it far and wide.
By the way, did you hear the one about the reporter who ....? |
