Reporting sinks mermaid story
As I suspected: the “lawsuit” over Kiryat Yam’s mermaid contest is a prank, although on whose part is not clear. Metro reports (the admirable verb here is “reports”):
Contacted yesterday, the real Mermaid Medical Association — a 12-year-old health clinic on Coney Island’s Mermaid Avenue — was confused. A receptionist said the phone had been ringing nonstop but she knew nothing of the letter.
“Do we even have mermaids?” she asked. “I’ve never seen one.”
Can I ask a serious question about an innocuous story? How does the original reporting on this differ from the brouhaha about the Swedish newspaper and Israeli “organ harvesting”? This story and the organs story both start with a self-interested rumor or dubious proposition, which gets reported, if not as “fact,” than as an interesting possibility that warrants further study.
The difference, of course, is that the organs story is grossly defamatory (if untrue, of course), traffics in anti-Semitic imagery, and involves what would be a horrifically inhumane and even criminal activity with the potential to lead to even more bloodshed. The mermaid story is … cute (although in invoking the international court in The Hague, even the mermaid story could find its way into the pro- and anti-Israel debate).
Still, if we care about the big things, we have to sweat the small things.
By the way, J.J. Goldberg has a good piece about the organs story and journalistic gullibility (and malpractice).
JustASC is written by Andrew Silow-Carroll, Editor-in-Chief of the 