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Posted on 04/15/2014 6:07:43 AM PDT by marshmallow
A British Catholic journalist has said she was astonished when major world news outlets mistook an Vatican April Fool’s report she wrote for a genuine news story.
The Guardian, which this week won a Pulitzer Prize for its reporting of Edward Snowden’s National Security Agency leaks, was one of the organisations that reported the hoax story that the Vatican employed a hawk called Sylvia to protect the doves periodically released by the Pope.
Other outlets to reproduce the story include Agence France-Presse and the Washington Times.
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicherald.co.uk ...
nothing wrong with the joke - but tells a lot about the gullible public who elect our leaders.
Science once tought there were no, repeat NO authorities.
The hypothesis had to be verifiable, not vouched for by an “authority”.
Who supports a hypothesis , or how many is not determinative.
Verification is.
Even applies to wordsmiths.
For some years now, news outlets have, as a cost saving measure, simply has ‘reporters’ write stories from press releases, rather than have them go out and ‘report’.
Entity puts out press release
Reporter gets it from fax machine
Writes story
It’s that simple. And no, they rarely pick up a phone to ask questions. I saw this for years in newspapers on all manner of subjects.
Science once taught there were no, repeat NO authorities.
The hypothesis had to be verifiable, not vouched for by an “authority”.
Who supports a hypothesis , or how many is not determinative.
Verification is.
Even applies to wordsmiths.
At least it’s not a nasty sort of joke. Could have been something very ugly, especially from the Guardian.
Yeah, well Jayson Blair of the NYT and Stephen Glass of the NYT were writing fake stories for years, intentionally.
There are a lot more of these stories out there, most not caught yet.
Related threads:
Pro-animal groups appeal to pope over dove attack
Birds attack peace doves freed from Pope Francis' window
Pope's dove of peace almost ends in pieces: Seagull attacks bird
Doves protected! First confirmed miracle of Frances!!! One more to go!
If history is any guide, they'll be telling this as fact for the next five hundred years.
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