Nico Marquardt
Nico Marquardt
Apophis in retreat
Photograph by Michael Sauerbier. On 15 April, Agence France-Presse became the conduit of this David and Goliath variant: Berlin (AFP). It didn’t take long for other wire services to pick up the story and pass it along. The next day, NASA spokesman Dwayne Brown issued a correction, alerted no doubt by the likes of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation who thought to check the story (it’s Journalism 101) and thus ended up getting it right. Two days later the correction was making headway but the original was still being picked up here and there.
German science writer Daniel Fischer was one of the first to source the precursors of this story... First, the 4 April Michael Sauerbier Bild article from whence the above photo was taken: Bild is Germany’s largest selling daily with a circulation of over a million. It’s what’s affectionately known here as a supermarket tabloid. Next comes the 11 April Potsdamer Neueste Nachrichten reworking of the story followed by the 13 April Der Tagesspiegel version. Both of these were authored by Guido Berg and it’s his embellishments that gave the story the credibility demanded by more serious news organizations, leading eventually to the AFP English rewrite.
A lot of writers have blasted the media for their usual lack of skepticism in all this but I have yet to see any criticism directed at Herr Berg. That’s understandable perhaps, because to appreciate how he turned a tabloid filler into a credible news piece one would have to understand German. Of course, Germans understand German, but they’re probably too busy reading Bild. ;)
On 18 April, seven days after his original masterpiece, Guido Berg wrote his own version of the NASA correction in the Potsdamer Neueste Nachrichten. Ironically, but not unexpectedly, lacking in this article is any mention of the author’s own culpability in this sordid affair.
Monday, April 21, 2008