Tribune finds 18th century piano and a Nazi in Karnataka forests

Here is an example of The Tribune, Chandigarh making an ass of itself. Shows how little journalistic investigation is in place now. The Tribune carried this story on July 1 with an impressive heading 88 year old Nazi war criminal held. The report quotes SM Bidari, ADGP, Intelligence, Karnataka mentioning to the TNS that the accused has been flown to Berlin. The story starts with an impressive name throwing - The RAW (Research and Analyses Wing) and IB (Intelligence Bureau) have helped the sleuths of the German Chancellor’s corps to nab an 88-year-old Nazi war criminal from the forests on the border of Karnataka and Goa.”

So far so good

This story was a hoax put across by the Pen Pricks, Goa based bloggers. This is how they went about it, as mentioned on there website:

….Now the tricky part. The story. The Goan media loves an easy feed. Give them an 800 word press note about a minister inaugurating a public toilet and chances are it should appear the next day, not a word changed. With the Indian media, we needed something idiotic and exotic. The Bach story suited our bill.In fabricating the story, we slipped in a lot of these anagrams PERUS NARKP, MALAK DULAB etc… (There’s nothing that conveys a message quicker and effectively than the fact
that you’ve been not only proven wrong, but stupid too) Then a thought crossed our minds… Since we had included Bach in the story, why don’t we throw in a piano for good effect too? So we included a 18th century piano, the same century Bach was born in. Then we turned the heat on a bit more.
We also stated in the press note that this fictitious SS Colonel Johann Bach too loved music and was a talented musician… And that our fictitious character was sired to Ambrosius Bach
in Eisenach.

We mailed this press note to several newspaper houses in Goa. We called three newspapers too introducing ourselves as Hamman Smit, a press official working for the Perus Narkp. The thick German accent seemed to have passed muster. In fact Suhas Belekar who works for a Marathi publication in Goa, Dainik Gomantak appeared happy and grateful to have even spoken to a person of German origin on the other end of phone. Maybe its the Aryan thing…

Once the story was picked up by the local media, the national newspaper swooped in quite literally like vultures eager to pick prey. The story seems to have really spread quickly over the weekend…

The story in The Tribune appears by the byline of Shubhadeep Choudhary and surely this journo or a churno (as he happens to be churning stories the copy-paste way) is expert in ‘cooking’ stories and we the gullible junta laps what ever is thrown at us. See what he mentions in his ‘exclusive’ report - Berlin also had information that an old German had bragged about overseeing the genocide of Jews to an Israeli tourist couple in Goa during a rave party a few months ago. The former Nazi had mistaken the couple to be Americans.

This churno copied the story from the Telegraph and the Indian Express and made it look like his own story. After all who in the up North was going to check what happens in Karnatka forests. The Pen Pricks webiste mentions that their press note had not mentioned anything about Bach bragging out to any Israeli couple and this was invented by the Indian Express and this moron at the Tribune simply copied it.

“already flown to Berlin” …muahaha
“and the DGP thinks it is true”… great
“Berlin also had information”… too good

Sad reflection how the journos do not lift there asses to check the stories and there is a serious lack of credibility and in-depth research. Reporting has now become a copy-paste job. Even the editors seems too lazy to fart around. Sensationalism seems be the mantra these days. ‘Tribune’ and ‘News’ cannot be put in the same sentence. Tribune is the most amusing thing I have read since the tales of sheikhchily.

No big surprise to read about catching a Nazi in deep Karnataka forests with intentions to sell a piano. I hope The Tribune get the piano back. Hats off!

Pen Pricks

Siddharth Varadarajan on this episode in the Hindu

An update to the hoax on Reuters Blogs