Goofabhimani:when the media goofs up!

Goofabhimani n A newspaper/media house which loses its respect(abhimaan) because of a big goof up or blunder on the reporter's or editor's part.
(Latest word added to Pravster's concise dictionary)

Its not everyday that you get to see an established newspaper goofing up, right on front page. Well, Desabhimani, the malayalam daily's monday morning goof up became so popular that in the last 2 days, I've received atleast 10 forwards carrying this same stuff. Well, for the uninitiated, the report went like this- "Man creates world record by eating 68 dogs in 10 minutes". This rare news happened in one of those rare moments when the 'goofabhimani' editor was so excited with something else that he wouldn't even have noticed if a nude picture was on the front page. The actual incident is that there's a popular 'hot dog' eating competition in US and this man eat 68 'hot dogs' to create the record. Our poor reporter just copied it literally into malayalam. Am wondering, what the hell was the editor doing? Does this guy ever take a look at what is printed in his paper?

Infact, this paper is not new to the art of goofing up. If my memory serves right, this is the same newspaper which gave us that big breaking news last year- "All mobile incoming calls will be free from next week". Yes, this also resulted from another copying excercise gone bad. This time, they copied from a special anniversary issue of a national newspaper. As part of the anniversary, the newspaper had dedicated their first page to all the important news that happened in the last 10 years, one of which was the 'incoming calls free' news. And, our goofies in the newsroom just copied it without even giving a second glance at it. There was another big blunder last week from 'Malayala Manorama', the leading daily in Kerala as well as one of the masters of fake stories. This awesome find was made by blogger scorpiogenius. There was a news report on Planning commission Deputy Chairman M.S.Ahluwalia's comments on the budget. The only problem was the accompanying picture was not Ahluwalia's, but Nithari serial murderer Mohinder Singh.

This couple of ultra blunders set me thinking on some possible goof-up scenarios in the future. Some of those shocking possibilities-

1. You might one day wake up to the shocking news that 'Gandhiji is still alive'. Ofcourse, our newsmen would've confused himself when he saw a 100th anniversary special supplement on the 'salt satyagraha'.

2. New local bank named HSBC opening in Chavakkad junction. Reporter confused by HSBC's tagline 'The world's local bank'.

3. Smaller one wins in the fight of Tata sumos. The oversmart reporter inserted the word 'Tata' and overlooked the fact that it was a news item on Japanese sumo fighters.

4. Orkut stops sale of 'donuts'. A 'net-savvy' reporter misconstructs orkut's trademark server down reply, 'No donuts for you'.

5. Pop music played for the first time in holy vatican. A slight mis-reporting on the honourable pope's latest sermon in Vatican.

6. Maneka Gandhi plays cricket with right handed animals. original headline- Maneka Gandhi 'bats' for animal rights.

Lets brace ourselves for the goof up onslaught, courtesy the newspapers.

Image courtesy-Wikipedia

your crusader Praveen