It’s in the papers, it must be true!

Posted by Zoe Smith on 8 March 2006 at 16:53
Tags: Journalism, Sunday Times, United States

Oh dear, oh dear. As we reported here on Monday, the Sunday Times a few weeks ago reported on a non-existent WHO report about the extinction of blondes, presumably by repeating 2002 news reports from the many papers that were fooled by the hoax when it first emerged.

Now the paper’s namesake in New York has compounded the error — by repeating the Sunday Times’ recent report.

Back when this story first emerged, the New York Times’ great rival, the Washington Post, ran a story showing how lax fact-checking had led the media echo-chamber to perpetuate the story. Now that is worth digging out of the archive.

Tags: Journalism, Sunday Times, United States