Some people just can't help breaking up the fun. They would rather be all grown up and serious and frowny-pants when the giggling takes over from important matters.
Good thing too. But first the fun part. Spawned by a news release from Denmark's national history museum, here are some recent yarns making the media rounds:
- Huffington Post (UK) Pacu, Testicle-Eating 'Ball-Cutter' fish Spotted in Sweden ; A mash-up of other reports, and includes a pic of a piranha, which has really sharp teeth, rather than of the actual Pacu, a native of the Amazon Basin that is mainly vegetarian.
- Los Angeles Times (blogpost) Deborah Netburn: Toothy pacu fish caught in Swedish waters; skinny dippers are warned ; Netburn does have cover – she quotes an email from the authors of the directive on this non-native fish. It seems to corroborate that somebody with credentials does suggest that just maybe there are more of them and maybe the rumors that pacus really are man-fruit eaters and thus so-adorned swimmers in the Strait of Oresrund should keep their trunks on.
- Counsel &Heal News – Cheri Cheng: Authorities Warn Swimmers in Scandinavia: Pacu Fish Will Eat Your Balls ; I dunno what sort of news outlet this is. But one does marvel at the certainty expressed in the headline.
- NPR (blog) Bill Chappell: Beware The Pacu, Experts Tell Men Who Skinny-Dip In Scandinavia ; Yep, and Chappell kindly provides the raw source for reports that this ball-cutter with fins is the real deal. It is this from a citadel of ichthyological perspicacity: The Daily Mail (Dec. 28, 2011) Nadia Gilani: Gentlemen look away: Angler snares deadly fish that killed two men by biting off their testicles ; This story in turn, according to tracker original research, is promotional residue of an Animal Planet cable TV show, River Monsters in its episode Nut Crackers.
- Daily News – Victoria Taylor: Swedish men warned of testicle-biting pacu fish ;
- The Local (Sweden's News in English) Oliver Gee: Swedish men warned of crotch-chomping fish ; This hed even gives women in the region nightmares.
You get the picture.
For a better strain of journalism, we have this version:
- National Geographic – Ker Than: Fears of 'Testicle-Eating' fish Overblown / Danish male swimmers, your testicles are (probably) safe ; Mr. Than, more than a tad irritated by other reports in media, tipped ksjtracker off to this news event, thank you very much. His story, one must say, manages itself to be a bit coy, not quite totally debunking the day's favorite angle on this news. But at least is knocks it well down the alert scale. Many outlets just cut, pasted, or rewrote the release, he gripes, and went for pun-filled headlines and permitted readers to assume an army of testicle-eating piranhas is in northern Europe. Further, he talked with the scientists behind the release who told him, first, the ball-eating part is only a rumor and does not even arise from the fish's home range (it is invasive in many lands), and second, the researchers thought they were just sharing some fun with reporters. He apologized to us, unnecessarily, for tooting his own horn and sharing how irked he is with how most colleagues covered this report.
Ker Than, you done good.
Grist for the Mill: University of Copenhagen: Danish swimmers escape waters fearing killer fish ; Privates-eating is not at the very top of the release. Nonetheless, given the nature of news reporting this press release was just asking for a foolish and baselessly alarming media feeding frenzy.
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