[Goanet-News] COMMENT: Stories that are too good to check (Siddharth Varadarajan, in The Hindu)

[Goanet News]

http://www.hindu.com/2008/07/01/stories/2008070152221100.htm

Stories that are too good to check

Siddharth Varadarajan

Several Indian newspapers fell victim to a hoax about the arrest
of a supposed Nazi war criminal. Apart from the media's alarming
ignorance, the episode also reveals our fascination for
unconfirmed news from 'intelligence' sources.

On Sunday, an email message from 'Hamman Smit,' press officer from
'Perus Narpk' from Shede Road in Berlin arrived in the inbox of
several journalists in Goa and Bangalore. The message identified
'Perus Narpk' as the "intelligence wing of the German Chancellor's
core" (sic) and claimed credit for the arrest on the
Karanataka-Goa border of a fugitive Nazi war criminal named Johann
Bach who was responsible for the killing of 12,000 Jews in the
'Marsha Tikash Whanaab' concentration camp. The email contained a
press release full of outlandish details about the operation,
including the claim that the octogenarian Bach had revealed his
identity to a holidaying Israeli couple during a rave party in
Goa, and had stolen an 18th century piano from a museum in 'East
Berlin' which he was trying to sell through a local newspaper.
Suggestive clues

The email was literally full of clues suggesting it was a hoax.
The author revealed he was "hamming," his office was on 'Shady'
road and the rather un-Germanic 'Perus Narpk' was an anagram for
'Super Prank.' Even if the journalists did not know there was no
concentration camp with the name 'Marsha Tikash Whanaab,' a quick
search on the Internet might have at least triggered a warning
light. And yet, a number of hacks and their editors rushed to
print with this sensational story without bothering to check any
of its hilarious details.

The Telegraph ran the story on Monday under the headline "Goa
piano 'thief' found to be Nazi war fugitive." It quoted
"Intelligence Bureau officials" saying that Mr. Bach had come to
India via Argentina, Bulgaria and Canada. The story was
accompanied by a world map showing how Mr. Bach crisscrossed the
world before ending up in Goa. The word 'unconfirmed' was inserted
parenthetically next to Yemen, suggesting that the newspaper had
confirmed all other aspects of the story.

And how was this terrible criminal caught? The newspaper provided
this breathless account: "Goa's beaches are frequented by young
Israeli couples, most of them seeking leisure after a term of
compulsory military service in their country. Bach, mistaking the
couple for Americans, told them he had 'managed' a Nazi
concentration camp during the war. The German authorities put two
and two together when they realised that the museum from where the
piano was stolen was located close to a concentration camp in
Berlin. They already knew that the camp was run by a young man
named Bach, who was never caught after the war."

The Indian Express went one step ahead of its competitors with an
exclusive detail, noting in its headline that the "Nazi war
criminal" had already been "airlifted to Berlin." Clearly, if the
story was too good for journalists to check, it was too good for
the police to deny: "Though local police and intelligence agencies
in Karnataka said they were 'unaware' of the operation," the
Express noted, "Karnataka Additional DGP for Intelligence Shankar
Bidari said his office had received information of the arrest on
Saturday morning. He also said the alleged war criminal had been
moved to Germany." The only saving grace in the newspaper's
account was its attempt to cross-check the story with the German
authorities: "Officials at the German embassy, when contacted,
said they had received no information of the arrest in Goa."

The Deccan Herald, which had all the usual details, also informed
its readers that the arrested Nazi was "a brilliant musician like
his illustrious 18th Century namesake" and later ""rose high in
the Nazi hierarchy." The newspaper also said that Mr. Bach's
whereabouts "have been kept a secret" and that he would be put on
trial ""at the International Court of Justice, The Hague."
Rediff.com complained about the unhelpful attitude of the Indian
police. "Although so much information regarding Bach has
surfaced," it wrote, "both the Karnataka and Goa police continue
to opt for the denial mode… The Belgaum police, when questioned as
to what Bach was doing in the jungles at Khanapur, said they were
unaware of any such arrest."

This brilliant hoax was the handiwork of 'Penpricks' a
journalists' collective in Goa whose blog, penpricks.blogspot.com,
is dedicated to discovering "the rotund flanks and the shaggy
underbelly of the Goan media. And of course, the rare honest rib."
One of its more celebrated exposes was the debunking of a story
run by CNN-IBN about the Russian mafia taking over land in Goa.
Penpricks also criticised The Herald for offering to strike a deal
for the sale of lead editorials after it posed as a business house
interested in positive coverage.

But even if the immediate target of Penpricks was the Goan media,
it has succeeded in exposing the underbelly of the Indian media as
a whole. Indeed, there is nothing surprising about the hoax
receiving such widespread play in the national press. For though
the 'Johann Bach' story was outlandish, it was no more so than the
reports regularly put out by Indian police departments about the
arrest of terrorism suspects.

It is easy to laugh at the gullibility of reporters and editors in
the 'Bach' case but is our profession any less gullible when it
uncritically regurgitates improbable, unverified and unverifiable
details provided by the police in virtually all terrorism cases?
Do any of us ever stop to ask how the police is able to reveal
intimate details about a suspect's prior movements and
associations within hours of arresting him? One of the country's
worst kept secrets is that the police admit to having arrested a
suspect days and sometimes even weeks after first taking him into
custody. During this period of custody, the suspect is worked over
and only after there is nothing more to extract is his "arrest"
announced to the media. More often than not, the suspect will be
paraded before photographers and journalists who will faithfully
note down every 'fact' provided to them by the police. Some of
these 'facts' may well be true; but in accepting them at face
value, that too from a source whose tendency to distort and
mislead is legendary, are we really all that different from the
victims of Perus Narpk?