A tale of love lost, opportunity taken and how fake news is, during a slow news week, far more interesting than the real news.
The story, set in the picturesque Lower Silesia district of Poland starts with an ordinary occurrence, a pain inducing tooth ache. Marek Olszewski suffered such an occurrence and sought the help of his recently ex’d girlfriend Anna.
Anna, as the tale goes, was not only Marek’s ex but also a dentist. A dentist that couldn’t resist the temptation that is the ugly green monster of revenge. With Marek heavily sedated Anna proceeded to remove all of Marek’s pearly whites, a complete root canal of the head. Sending him home wrapped in bandages to later discover the gummy holes that once contained his teeth which had all been extracted.
The Daily Mail even went so far as to report Anna Mackowiak, 34, is now facing jail after taking her revenge on 45-year-old Marek Olszewski when he turned up at her surgery with toothache just days after breaking up with her, leaving her for another lady. Anna was quoted as saying ‘I tried to be professional, but when I saw him, I thought, What a b******”.’
Covered widely, appearing in such astute publications as the Daily Mail, Fox News, LA Times, The Huffington Post and Australia’s Herald Sun, the story was hugely popular and completely fictional.
MSNBC managed to do what the rest of the media world had forgotten, their jobs. A quick call to the relevant Polish authorities revealed the story was a complete fabrication. Not only were Polish police not investigating any such incident but the two main players in this sordid tale Anna and Marek are totally fictional characters.
While it may be easy to launch into a tirade regarding the internet’s effects on a changing world this gem has to be attributed to poor journalism backed by ineffectual editing. The internet hasn’t changed a journalist’s job, it has changed how we read their works but accurate and responsible reporting of news has been the name of the game since time immemorial.
Reference: MSNBC, Journalist At Work