# LA Times: stop spreading urban legends! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 8, 2004, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/la-times-stop-spreading-urban-legends/278785 "2004-12-08T18:48:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/la-times-stop-spreading-urban-legends/278785/1 "2004-12-08T18:48:45Z")
The Los Angeles Times ran an editorial [last week](http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-op-stein5dec05,1,586719.story) (registration may be required) in which they inveigh against the current crop of reality shows for scripting events and presenting them as supposedly “real.” Fair enough - that’s a valid complaint, although who actually believed that “The Simple Life” was untouched by producers’ hands is a mystery to me. But in the lead paragraph for this rant, the LA Times righteously thunders that it has proof that the “reality” is fake, and says: > [@](#): > > But these shows purporting to be unadulterated documentaries are unreal in a more obvious way: They are secretly crafted in advance by writers. And I’ve got the entertainment equivalent of the Pentagon Papers to prove it. Maybe more like the equivalent of the photo with President Bush holding the fake Thanksgiving turkey in Iraq, but still, they are definitely papers. Now, obviously the “fake Thanksgiving turkey in Iraq” is not critical to the point they are making – it’s just a throwaway example of something else that’s… well… fake. But the New York Times, which reported on the fake turkey story, admitted later that it wasn’t fake after all. Thus are urban legends perpetuated. Say what you will about Bush. The turkey wasn’t fake, and the LA Times is helping the cause of ignorance by repeating the untrue story. ---
**Author:** ![Gaudere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e495f1/32.png) [@Gaudere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gaudere)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/la-times-stop-spreading-urban-legends/278785/2 "2004-12-08T19:51:59Z")
Hm, I hadn’t heard that before; from what I heard then the turkey was created for the photo op and the servicemen were eating from steam trays (though I’m sure if the bird was properly cooked it got eaten by somebody). But I don’t remember anyone saying it was plastic or anything. I suspect newspapers just don’t fact-check editorials much (I’ve certainly seen bullshit in some of them that a competent fact-checker should have caught) , though there’s a very small chance that the guy used poor phrasing and meant to say “staged”. But if there’s a legend of a plastic bird around, yeah, he’s most likely spreading it. Should you say the “LA Times” is “righteously thundering”, when it’s some entertainment guy’s editorial? ---
**Author:** ![lno](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a8b319/32.png) [@lno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lno)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/la-times-stop-spreading-urban-legends/278785/3 "2004-12-08T20:12:23Z")
If left unchecked, this will cause the downfall of the Republic. ---
**Author:** ![beagledave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@beagledave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beagledave)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/la-times-stop-spreading-urban-legends/278785/4 "2004-12-08T20:14:16Z")
> [@Gaudere](#): > > Hm, I hadn’t heard that before; from what I heard then the turkey was created for the photo op and the servicemen were eating from steam trays (though I’m sure if the bird was properly cooked it got eaten by somebody). But I don’t remember anyone saying it was plastic or anything. I suspect newspapers just don’t fact-check editorials much (I’ve certainly seen bullshit in some of them that a competent fact-checker should have caught) , though there’s a very small chance that the guy used poor phrasing and meant to say “staged”. But if there’s a legend of a plastic bird around, yeah, he’s most likely spreading it. > > Should you say the “LA Times” is “righteously thundering”, when it’s some entertainment guy’s editorial? Not a plastic bird, but a [trophy turkey](http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2001806972_bushturkey04.html) …the question was whether such a bird was standard fair for chow lines… > [@](#): > > A contractor had roasted and primped the turkey to adorn the buffet line, while the 600 soldiers were served from cafeteria-style steam trays, the officials said. They said the bird was not placed there in anticipation of Bush’s stealthy visit, and military sources said a trophy turkey is a standard feature of holiday chow lines. The “urban legend” apparently is that the trophy turkey was only done because of Bush’s visit…when in reality, it’s SOP for TDay chow lines. ---
**Author:** ![Gaudere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e495f1/32.png) [@Gaudere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gaudere)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/la-times-stop-spreading-urban-legends/278785/5 "2004-12-08T20:22:05Z")
Makes sense, beagledave. Do they eat those things or are they just for show? ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/la-times-stop-spreading-urban-legends/278785/6 "2004-12-08T20:51:42Z")
Probably for show, since the troops would just get served MREs as usual. 😉 (Insert your own joke about a “show turkey” and a “show President” here) ---
**Author:** ![beagledave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@beagledave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beagledave)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/la-times-stop-spreading-urban-legends/278785/7 "2004-12-08T21:21:15Z")
> [@Gaudere](#): > > Makes sense, beagledave. Do they eat those things or are they just for show? I’ll have to be honest and say I have no idea. The whole episode was kinda fuzzy in my brain pan…so I had to google just to recall the scuttlebutt. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/la-times-stop-spreading-urban-legends/278785/8 "2004-12-08T21:37:04Z")
> [@beagledave](#): > > Not a plastic bird, but a [trophy turkey](http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2001806972_bushturkey04.html) …the question was whether such a bird was standard fair for chow lines… > > The “urban legend” apparently is that the trophy turkey was only done because of Bush’s visit…when in reality, it’s SOP for TDay chow lines. It doesn’t seem reasonable to call the bird “fake,” and it’s completely untrue to call the bird “plastic,” yet it was done quite a bit: The [Sydney Morning Herald’s Alan Ramsay](http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/12/12/1071125653983.html?oneclick=true): > [@](#): > > Hear about George Bush’s plastic turkey? No, not his rubber duck. His turkey. Even John Howard, under the blankets in the dead of night, must be starting to wonder what in George’s name he’s got us into. Mark Latham didn’t realise the utter truth of his immaculate character assessment. We now learn Howard took this country into war at the bidding of a US President who makes a complete goose of himself by “feeding” American troops in Baghdad a plastic Christmas turkey. Yes, really. [Stuffed by a plastic turkey](http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1101131,00.html) in the UK’s Guardian. [Link to Ananova.com.](http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_844321.html) [Free Internet Press](http://freeinternetpress.com/modules.php?name=News&file=print&sid=790) said > [@](#): > > He took a large plate with the turkey as if he wanted to feed them all, though the commentator says this is fake plastic turkey - which the guys from the Administration don’t deny. They explain that a real turkey would weight more than 10 kilograms and it’d be hard for him to smile. [Commondreams.org](http://www.commondreams.org/scriptfiles/views03/1206-02.htm) republished, uncritically, the Guradian article. It also repeated the claim [other places.](http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0406-12.htm) Even [CNN](http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0312/07/sun.04.html) repeated the allegation: > [@](#): > > The president’s Thanksgiving trip to Baghdad to visit the troops generated widespread support for the mission but also criticism for its secretive nature and reportedly a fake plastic turkey… If someone offered that list of cites to prove that the turkey was made of plastic… what would be the response? This is why repeating a false story, even in passing, is BAD. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/la-times-stop-spreading-urban-legends/278785/9 "2004-12-08T21:41:52Z")
I’ve noticed the L.A. Times has a penchant for one urban legend in particular…which is that nobody rides the Metro trains, except a few rich white people. ---
**Author:** ![Talon\_Karrde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Talon\_Karrde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Talon_Karrde)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/la-times-stop-spreading-urban-legends/278785/10 "2004-12-08T21:43:54Z")
I guess I’m with Bricker here. Even though the circumstances surrounding the turkey aren’t what they were made to look like, calling it a fake plastic turkey makes it seem even worse than that. I’m guessing they just don’t know, but that’s really not an excuse. It’s the same type of thing that Fox News is accused of, repeating misstatements. It makes it appear true. Personally, using a fake turkey would be a lot worse than what actually happened. ---
**Author:** ![Mojo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Mojo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mojo)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/la-times-stop-spreading-urban-legends/278785/11 "2004-12-08T22:28:53Z")
**Bricker** , are you by any chance a Tim Blair reader? From what I’ve heard it’s like **Beagledave** says- its standard to have a fully-cooked turkey at the tables as a centerpiece but the troops actually get served mess hall style as usual for logistical purposes. Dunno if the centerpieces get eaten or not. [sub](hope this gets in before the “yeah, well Bushco’s WMD lie led to 1,000,000 dead Iraqi babies!!!1!1!” crowd shows up)[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/la-times-stop-spreading-urban-legends/278785/12 "2004-12-08T22:43:27Z")
**Bricker** , I read the OP differently. I read the sentence as, “not the Pentagon Papers (a real smoking gun), but something which sure sounds convincing, like the fake turkey story did.” ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Vega](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a9adbd/32.png) [@Lord\_Vega](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Vega)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/la-times-stop-spreading-urban-legends/278785/13 "2004-12-09T04:31:41Z")
> [@](#): > > The “urban legend” apparently is that the trophy turkey was only done because of Bush’s visit…when in reality, it’s SOP for TDay chow lines. Absolutley SOP. I can’t say if the Bush turkey was real or not, I wasn’t there. But I can say, in 20 years of Naval service, I always had real turkey on turkey day. Every year. Every mess hall. No mater where I was deployed. Sure, we ate it off of steel or fiberglass mess trays, but the food was real. The cooks would carve it up in front of you most times. The times they didn’t, you could tell it was freshly carved. Cheers, Vega ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/la-times-stop-spreading-urban-legends/278785/14 "2004-12-09T06:21:38Z")
The way it was explained to me was, you have (real) turkey prepared in the kitchen and served from steam trays, to comply with hygiene regulations; and then, to make it look more festive, you get a cheap little turkey and cook it superficially and use it as a sort of centrepiece. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/la-times-stop-spreading-urban-legends/278785/15 "2004-12-09T07:15:20Z")
One turkey for 600 servicemen? That must be one big-ass turkey. ---
**Author:** ![Malodorous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47774/32.png) [@Malodorous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malodorous)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/la-times-stop-spreading-urban-legends/278785/16 "2004-12-09T07:35:51Z")
Makes a lot more sense this way really. After all, whats both cheaper to obtain and easier to find then a photorealistic fake plastic turkey?: a real turkey. It’s not like their an ultra-rare, hard to find item that would need to be faked. My ignorance has been fought. ---
**Author:** ![BlackKnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eb8c5e/32.png) [@BlackKnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlackKnight)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/la-times-stop-spreading-urban-legends/278785/17 "2004-12-09T10:52:08Z")
I agree with the OP. But I do understand how this story might have started. When I saw the pic on CNN, the turkey _looked_ plastic. It was Martha Stewart-perfect. That, combined with the total unexpectedness of Bush being in Iraq at all, led me to momentarily suspect that CNN had been hacked or was playing some kind of weird gag. ---
**Author:** ![drgnrdr07](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/71e660/32.png) [@drgnrdr07](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drgnrdr07)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/la-times-stop-spreading-urban-legends/278785/18 "2004-12-09T14:10:34Z")
Actually, I was in Iraq last year at thanksgiving. Bush came to the base I was at(Baghdad international airport), but not my camp on base. We were only given the presence of the Secretary of the Air Force, Dr. Roche, who is probably the fattest man that I have ever seen in person. I also happen to be a military cook and I know how thanksgiving gets done overseas. They would probably have a combination of “real” turkeys and turkey rolls, which are rolls of light and dark meat, in addition to many other meats, starches, veggies, etc. I am definitely a Bush hater, but I can’t say how much I respected him for showing up on Turkey Day in the middle of a warzone. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2004, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/la-times-stop-spreading-urban-legends/278785/19 "2004-12-10T22:48:22Z")
I just don’t see why people would care. It’s a photo op, all presidents do 'em, they’re all a little fake, and if the troops enjoyed eating with the president, which most probably did, what the fuck is the harm if they make it slightly prettier for TV? So the fact that they didn’t even really do that makes it all the less important.