I have to confess that I was drawn in by the recent story of the mouse who allegedly burned down a house in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. Resident Luciano Mares had supposedly captured the pesky little critter and decided to discard him in a fire.
As the story goes, according to fire officials, the flaming rodent escaped the fire, and then high-tailed it back inside the house, where he set the fire which ultimately left Mares homeless.
I was drawn in, but I didn't report it.
The controlled media did, however. News outlets, spawned by the major wire services including the Associated Press and the French news service AFP, sported headlines such as "Fiery mouse burns the house" and "Mouse Gets Revenge: Sets Home Ablaze".
As I read the initial story, I remember thinking to myself, How do they KNOW the fire was caused by a mouse? Were there any witnesses? Or are they simply taking the man's word for it?
Now it surfaces that the whole story was nothing but B.S. It simply never happened. Mares, himself, appeared on a local television station and set the record straight.
Quoting from a MSNBC report, headlined, "Flaming Mouse Story Proven False",
"It's really humorous more than anything that a mouse burned down the house," he told KOAT-TV in Albuquerque. The mouse was dead when it hit the burning leaves.I picked this story as an example of what's wrong with media coverage today. This is especially true of local media coverage, of which I have had quite a lot of experience.
Mares said he trapped and killed the critter and tossed it on the fire.
The flames, he said, probably reached his house because they were driven by high winds.
Capt. Jim Lyssy of the Fort Sumner Fire Department said the rumor probably got started because there was "a little too much excitement" at the time of the fire.
Our local media ran with this story, because it was reported as fact by the wire services and the networks. They never cited any of these services, however. They simply reported the story as if it had actually happened, never once questioning whether the man might be lying, delirious, or that there could be a misunderstanding. They never asked how, for instance, the mouse could re-enter the house. Was the door left open? Did he enter through a window? CNN reported that the mouse was caught in a glue trap. How did the mouse escape from the glue trap?
What likely happened was the man was so hysterical at seeing his house on fire, that he was trying to tell his story to the firefighters, but he jumbled it up so bad that they misunderstood and got the impression that the mouse had started the fire, when, in fact, it had apparently been the wind that blew the fire. The misled firefighters then repeated the erroneous story to the local media, who then passed it on to the national.
As with the fire, we'll never really know for sure how the rumor actually got started.
We do, however, know two things:
- The house burned. We could probably be fairly certain of this, although even that should be questioned, at this point, if you haven't actually seen it.
- The media blew it. Big time!
Any word of any public official, whether it's a fireman, police officer, government agent, etc., is taken at face value as gospel by the local media. This is a fact; I've seen it first-hand, as I've worked in media for many years. The only exception to this rule is if a certain official's credibility is in question due to a corruption scandal or a similar reason to doubt their word. So much for being a watchdog on corrupt government, as our founding fathers intended.
Any word of the national wire services or the major networks is also repeated without question. If they say the moon is made of green cheese, it will be treated as if God had said it.
Regardless of what I've previously mentioned, the reporting of the incident would have been all right with the proper attribution. Had they stated that "officials on the scene said..." or "according to the homeowner...", then technically they would have still been right.
None of the reports that I had seen, made that attribution. Now, they are following up the story by saying that the integrity of the story is either in question, or that it's untrue.
Of course, there's no apology for their error. There's no acknowledgement of their misleading the public. There's no remorse for their role in spreading an untrue rumor, which is a disgrace to real journalism.
The whole event serves as a perfect example of how the controlled media — so haughty and prideful, so ready to criticize independent researchers and characterize us as kooks who lack credibility — can blow it themselves and never really repent.
Indeed, they lie to the people every day.
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