Big Fat Lie reported around the Globe

That horrendous tale about a Peruvian gang which murdered people for their fat was widely reported last month. A grisly photograph of "evidence" - four jars of human dripping from corpses plus a detached head - was circulated in most mainstream media outlets. Scientists were dubious about the existence of a black market for human lard, but still these arrest reports made the rounds, thanks to the Associated Press.

A closer look shows that story proved to be blatantly untrue, or as the Beeb put it, a "big fat lie." The top cop who circulated the story was sacked after hundreds of journalists were duped by his mix of horror and legend. Here's how.

Remains found in hunt for missing journalist

A forensics team searching for the body of a British journalist kidnapped by Palestinian militants more than 20 years ago recovered human remains in Lebanon, the Foreign Office said today.

British experts excavating a site in the Bekaa Valley reportedly dug up two bodies, one of which is undergoing DNA testing to determine if it is Alec Collett, who was abducted in 1985 during the civil war in Lebanon.

The other body is said to be that of an unidentified man who was first discovered during an earlier attempt to find Mr Collett.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: "We can confirm that unidentified human remains have been recovered. The operation is continuing."

Mr Collett, then 64, was on assignment in Palestinian refugee camps for the UN Relief and Works Agency when he was snatched at gunpoint in Beirut.

The following year the Abu Nidal Organisation (ANO), a militant arm of the Palestinian Fatah Movement, claimed to have killed him in retaliation for US air raids on Libya.

A video was released showing the hanging of a hooded figure said to be Mr Collett but the victim was never officially identified.

A spokesman for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said: "There is new forensic information. New remains have been found and are being identified. We are in touch with the family and they will be the first to know if there are any new developments. "UNRWA and the entire UN family remember Alec Collett, paying homage to him every year at UN Headquarters in New York on the day of solidarity for detained and missing humanitarian workers."

Hat tip to Rosamond Hutt, Press Association

Margaret Moth - true tale of a shooter, gunmen, and the ultimate killer

The cable news channel CNN celebrates Margaret Moth, a fearless camerawoman from New Zealand who, fifteen years ago, was hit by a sniper in Sarajevo and nearly lost her life. She was wounded beyond recognition but her work was unmistakable. Moth embodies the Frank Capra mantra that you cannot get too close to the action. A hard-living lady whose story shows her indominatable spirit. "I would have liked to go out with a little more flair," she says. Click here for two video segments.

Huffington Post headlines get the popularity test

Something devilishly brilliant: Huffington Post readers are randomly shown one of two headlines for the same story. After five minutes, which is enough time for such a high-traffic site, the version with the most clicks becomes the one that everyone sees.

Nieman labs analyses this latest twist in real time A/B testing.

Headlines have always played the most promotional role in news, charged with selling readers on the articles they adorn, so it only makes sense to apply the best tools of market research to their crafting. Think of it as a more rigorous version of magazines adjusting their covers based on newsstand sales.

Paul Berry, chief technology officer at The Huffington Post, spoke briefly about their real-time headline testing on a panel at the Online News Association conference in San Francisco earlier this month. When I talked to him afterwards, Berry said the system was created inhouse, but he wouldn’t disclose much else about how or how often it’s done. He did say Huffington Post editors have found that placing the author’s name above a headline almost always leads to more clicks than omitting it.

Blue-haired Marge Simpson takes it off for Playboy spread

SOft-porn is taking to cartoons, as Playboy mag reaches out to a 'toon demographic. The BBC got word that the shots are "very, very racy"...but this may not be surpsising after Bart Simpson's full frontal in the movie.
Cowabunga. These are different times

Waiting to Inhale

Wanna-be cannabis critics have been keen to share samples of their writing with Coloradan editor Patricia Calhoun, who is sifting through them to find the perfect journalist to assess medical marijuana dispensaries for her rag, Westword, in "the Mile-high City." She recounts how

...the staffer who'd been posting "Mile High and Low" reviews every week for the past month under the name Mae Coleman (an homage to Reefer Madness) was ready to get back to his day job. Still, since the number of people seeking medical marijuana cards is growing even faster than the number of dispensaries in this state, we knew that not only was there a need for critical information, but that we'd have no shortage of qualified applicants. Not in the Mile High City. So we published a post asking would-be dispensary critics to write a brief essay on "What Marijuana Means to Me."

Our first applicant replied within five minutes — fast work for a stoner. Our first media response came a few minutes later — really fast work for a journalist.

A week later, our quest has been captured by everyone from the Wall Street Journal to the New York Times, and the essays continue to pour in — some silly, some actually spelled correctly (many potheads don't seem to care for punctuation), some very sincere. A sampling:

From an engineer who started with the great line "Hey, Joe, whatcha doin with that doob in your hand...What Mary Jane means to me: As a 'burner' of more than 14 years, I have spent many an hour pondering the importance of herb in my life... among other things. Recently, however, I have realized a new herbal importance to my overall quality of life. I am an outdoor sporting enthusiast and have experienced my share of injuries throughout the years, as many of us do. As I have aged (elegantly, damnit!), I have developed a couple of recurring conditions that have allowed me to legally indulge myself as an alternative to prescribed narcotics and the dangerous longterm effects. Long story short... (TOO LATE!) I have been frequenting many of our local dispensaries with mixed experiences. Most places are kind and professional. Others, though, are simply drug dealers that check your ID. I think that you have a great idea — a service, rather, that will help your readers make educated decisions and enjoy their 'medication' experience to the fullest..."

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High response to newspaper ad for Medical Marijuana critic

With journalist jobs increasingly cut, the response was predictably high for a new position as a critic of medical marijuana at a local Colorado paper which covers the cannabis depositories around the mile high cities of the Rockies. And after the NY Times came lately to cover this media story, interest just kept rolling. The editor, Patricia Calhoun, responds to the extra attention, and points out that it's no joke.