OPINION: SYDNEY (ABC Mediawatch / Pacific Media Watch): Now, here's a story we [at ABC Mediawatch] had a bit of fun with earlier this year...
"A man was found dead in his apartment draped in spider webs and more than 200 spiders, several snakes, thousands of termites, and a gecko were feasting on his corpse.
"Mark Voegel, 30, was found dead in Dortmund, Germany"
— ABC1 Media Watch, 7 March, 2011
Read the Media Watch Transcript
We discovered that that gruesome story in the Tele online had been taken from The Sun in the UK, where it had originally run seven years earlier...
"A man who lived in his own 'zoo'... was fatally bitten by a pet black widow spider, then eaten by the other creepy-crawlies."
— ABC1 Media Watch, 7 March, 2011
Same man, same town.
That story was written by a freelance journo called Allan Hall, who's based in Berlin. He told us in March...
"This story was picked up by me from Bild Zeitung, Germany's biggest daily....
"If you claim on television that I fabricated this story I will be contacting my lawyers..."
— ABC1 Media Watch, 7 March, 2011
Well, of course we didn't suggest that Mr Hall invented the story, but somebody made it up.
The Dortmund police told us that in 2004 a man had been found dead in a flat where he kept pet spiders in glass cages.
"Apart from the facts stated above, everything is fabricated..."
— ABC1 Media Watch, 7 March, 2011
He didn't die of a spider bite and there were no creepy-crawlies feeding on his corpse.
And talking of feeding on corpses, how about this story in the UK Daily Mail last Monday...
"Eaten by cannibals?
"Tourist lost in the forest, then searchers find charred bones.
"By Allan Hall"
— Daily Mail (UK), 17 October, 2011
Eaten by cannibals! Another great Hall yarn!
It tells the tale of a German round-the-world yachtsman who went on a goat hunt on an island in French Polynesia with a local guide called Henri Haiti - and never came back. Ramin's mostly burned remains were later found by police. And, reported Hall:
"The German newspaper Bild said that Haiti was a 'suspected cannibal'.
"Reporting from the island, it added ...
"'A prosecutor said that the probability is that he was murdered by a cannibal and parts of him were eaten.' "
— Daily Mail (UK), 17 October, 2011
Ah, Bild again! And "reporting from the island!" An irresistible story.
And sure enough, next morning in our very own Daily Telegraph...
"Traveller feared eaten by cannibal
"Alan Hall in Papeete"
— Daily Telegraph, 18 October, 2011
In Papeete! The capital of French Polynesia! Alan with only one L, but the story was pretty much identical to the Daily Mail's - and that came from Allan Hall in Berlin.
The next morning, a second story from Mr Hall in Pape'ete. This one even more definite.
"Investigators are sure that renegade South Sea guide and hunter Henri Haiti killed, dismembered and ate Mr Ramin..."
— Daily Telegraph, 19 October, 2011
But that story was flat-out wrong.
On Saturday, without referring to its earlier and much more prominent stories, The Telegraph published a little item which admitted that:
"French Polynesia's chief prosecutor has dismissed claims that cannibalism was involved, saying there was no evidence to suggest Ramin had been eaten."
— Daily Telegraph, 22 October, 2011
Elsewhere in the paper, a "clarification" cleared up the mystery of Allan Hall's whereabouts.
"The byline indicated the reporter was writing from Pape'ete. This was a mistake made in the production process. Mr Hall is based in Germany."
— Daily Telegraph, 22 October, 2011
Today The Australian erected a partial paywall around its online content. And next year, we're told, all News Ltd mastheads will be doing the same.
The irony is that the rubbish about cannibals appeared, not just on the Tele's free website, but in the hard copy of the newspaper, which people already pay good money for.
That's it for this week. Until next Monday, goodnight.
(cc) Creative Commons
Pacific Media Watch
