Shouldn’t the editors of all the papers that gave the Raelians massive free publicity feel really stupid right about now? http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/a...RTICLE_ID=30605
“A media analyst said **the Raelian movement got about $500 million worth of media coverage across the world **and I think it is true, and it is not finished,” the Associated Press quotes him as telling his followers. “This event saved me 20 years of work.”
In a different part of the article this guy Vorilhon almost sounds like he is bragging about fooling the media:
“If it’s not true, she’s also making history with one of the biggest hoaxes in history,”
What an attitude!
I used to say: SHOW US THE DNA! I doubt they will bother now. I suspect they never planned to show us any DNA.
Interesting - we just made an editorial decision a week or so ago not to run any more Raelian stuff precisely for this reason, that there was nothing “new” except more unverified claims, and it was just free publicity for a very dubious organisation.
no one seems to be running Raelian stuff anymore. I haven’t heard anything in weeks.
I’m still gonna stick to my skeptical but wait and see additude, but am leaning more towards outwardly denouning the cruel hoax and grabbing a large red hot iron rod and teaching Rael what probing really means!!
I must have missed the memo. When did “we” decide this, which of “us” are the editors, and does nobody remember the great Toilet Paper Shortage of the 70’s? That the media are a bunch of easily-confused-and-impressed boobs is not news.
For the record, CNN covered the story today. I was only half paying attention but the gist of today’s news was that the Californian DSS is seeking custody of the child. Though the focus of the story was the legal proceedings, the rae-hoos got their obligatory plug.
Personally, I think the rae-raes should be held responsible for their intellectual dishonesty and as punishment, forced to format manuscripts for the rest time.
While I’m always happy to pounce on “the media,” I must point out that, to a large extent, it’s the ENTERTAINMENT media that have kept this story alive, more than the mainstream news media.
Jay Leno, David Letterman and Jon Stewart kept the Raellian story alive weeks after Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw had dropped it. And, sadly, these days it often seems as if more people get their news from Leno than from real newscasters.
CNN didn’t help either. Rael and his female crony of the orange streaked hair were interviewed on Crossfire, Connie Chung, etc.
They certainly got their 15 minutes of fame, but what on earth was the purpose of it? A recruitment strategy?
I suppose it’s a way of admitting we miss what we think were the “good old days” where there was such thing as “editorial judgement” (a.k.a. All the news that’s fit to print vs. All the news that fits). Disregarding, of course, that “editorial judgement” was often capricious, arbitrary, patronizing, politically or religiously aligned or simply for sale to the highest bidder…
You can, if that’s how you prefer to handle hoaxes…
However, I say the media should still have some brains left somewhere. They ferociously investigate all kinds of bizarre stories, yet give this clown who runs a cult a free pass. He supposedly got around a half billion dollars worth of publicity out of this probable hoax. And now he seems to be bragging about it!
So, yes. I hold the media much more responsible than the gullible human race. It’s the media’s job to do at least a minimal amount of checking the facts. Two quick checks would have done it. All they had to do was look into the difficulty of cloning a human, and then take a look at the guy who was making these claim. As Sagan said: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” I could have done it, and I’m not a journalist.
“Disregarding, of course, that “editorial judgement” was often capricious, arbitrary, patronizing, politically or religiously aligned or simply for sale to the highest bidder…”
What if the media had done as you suggested, done a little checking, and then made a judgement call that it was probably a hoax, and didn’t run the story? And then it turned out to be true?
You talk about heads rolling in the Corridors of Media Power. I’m serious–there would be mass firings at some very high levels. Every staffer, every editor who had thrown the Clonaid press release into the circular file would find themselves working at Taco Bell the day after some other newspaper/network/channel broke the story that it was true.
Generally speaking, the media doesn’t believe in taking chances like that, hence the reason for all the gonzo Perpetual Motion and Planet X and Miracle Cancer Cure stories–what if they turn out to be true? And your newspaper/network/channel was the only one who didn’t run the story? You’d be toast.
And anyway, it’s not that implausible. They’ve got a cloned cat down at Texas A & M.
I disagree with your assertion Duck Duck Goose. No one would have gotten fired for not running a story that after independent verification turned out to be true. The only thing that would have happened is that story would have ran when verified and made the headlines. Which is what happened except that the story wasn’t verified. Amazingly no heads rolled, that I know of, for printing this disinformation.
It is rather amazing. I haven’t heard of any accountability on this either…
However, since it seems that “news” is often merely an extension of entertainment nowdays, let’s just label the whole mess disinfotainment and call for a round of root beers!
Right- but heads WOULD have rolled if one network had held off on the story until all the facts had been checked, while all the OTHER networks ran with the story! The people who waited for confirmation would have been history.
Far too many news organizations don’t make the slightest effort to check out the credibility of their sources. Why do you think Howard Stern fans are able to get through to major news shows and make bad jokes on the air*? It’s because networks are more concerned with getting the story FIRST than in getting it right.
Remember how, after Colin Ferguson went on a shooting spree on the Long Island Railroad, a prankster using an OBVIOUSLY phony Jamaican accent called in, and got on TV saying that the shooter kept yelling “Bababooey, bababooey!”
Remember how a similr pranksters using an OBVIOUSLY phony Amos-and-Andy type “black” accent called Peter Jennings, pretending he was a witness to the O.J. Simpson white Bronco chase (“Bababooey to 'y’all!”)?
Remember how MSNBC put a Stern fan on the air, claiming that Princess Di’s accident was caused by a high-speed rush to the video store to rent “Private Parts”?
In ALL of those cases, the simplest, most basic fact checking (heck, a modicum of COMMON SENSE!) would have kept those jokers off the air. But, apparently, common sense is in short supply in the news media.
Phil, heads don’t roll when a story is covered that turns out to be a hoax. The Higher-Ups (by which I mean the network executives, the publishers, the owners, etc.) don’t really care how many Perpetual Motion and Miracle Cancer Cure and Planet X stories their editors and station managers choose to run, as long as the ratings and sales are up. However, heads do roll when a story is NOT covered that everybody else covered, AND that turns out to be the Story of the Century.
Which “The First Human Clone!” would have been.
If the Story of the Century did turn out to be true, and, say, ABC was the only network that didn’t have some kind of coverage of it, whereas everybody else had featured it, you can bet your sweet bippy there would have been mass firings at ABC of whoever made the decision not to run the story, AND of the people that they report to, AND of the people that THEY report to.
You underestimate the sheer competitiveness of the media, and the instinct to blame someone–anyone–when the “other guys” scoop you. Especially when they scoop you on the Story of the Century.
A recent non-scientific survey done by scientist concluded that the Story of the Century would be contact by Aliens. The only other story that was mentioned, and it got only one vote, was the JFK assassination.
.02
So are you happy with the media’s performance in covering this probable hoax? You seem to indicate that it’s more important to jump on the “news” bandwagon than to check the facts. If the news media is going to be this gullible I expect we will see all types of other phony claims floating around. Other people are watching, and learning, from the Raelian success.
