'Where is Jimmy Stewart when we need him ?'
asked Steve Lovelady. In
Towards a
Journalism of Reality, he wrote:
For our part, we are, and will continue to be, on the
side of those increasingly unheralded journalists on the ground who
deal in the currency of hard-won facts -- the coin of the realm of
the shrinking "reality-based community."
It looks as if the Baby 81 story was made up.
Did nine mothers claim the child? No.
Lost in Translation:
"Since the start, there has been only this couple
claiming the baby as theirs," Judge Moahaidein said in his 22-page
order handing the child over to the Jeyarajahs on Wednesday. "There
have been no nine couples as reported by the media."
That, despite Somini Sengupta's article
For Tsunami Orphan, No Name but Many Parents, datelined
Kalmunai, Sri Lanka, January 25:
So far, nine couples have claimed him as their own son.
Some among them have threatened suicide if the baby is not
delivered into their arms. ... The national newspapers have carried
almost daily narratives about his fate. The hospital has been so
mobbed that for a while, the staff hid the baby in the operating
theater every night for his own protection.
Wizbang has the story:
New York Times Crying
Over "Baby 81".