John C. Flackett

Hey, would you believe it. In a follow-up from my recent post on not believing everything you see and hear (School Bans Hugging), another well publicised example cropped up this week when the media (a lot of them) reported on a somewhat unbelievable story:

“Man sues Lynx after failing to get girl” (news.ninemsn.com)

If it sounds strange that someone would/could sue the makers of a deodorant because it failed to get him a girlfriend in the last 7 years of use, then you’d be right – it was a hoax!

The original story came from the Faking News website and it wasn’t just ninemsn that reported the story – I saw it on all the major TV stations in South Australia and it’s also appeared on news sites in the UK – see the DailyRecord for example. (By the way, the original ninemsn article has been removed but the cached version can still be read via Google links.)

It just goes to show you how much unfounded faith we put in our news broadcasters. The reason I bring this subject up again is that so many people were saying how amazing it was that a person could sue over something like this….well, he didn’t and that’s why it’s amazing.