Last month I wrote a satire called Superior Carbon Neutral Humans Discovered. It was based on a BBC article that claimed that an undiscovered tribe was threatened by illegal logging. The joke was that a fictional scientist admires a the tribe's tiny carbon footprints so much that he deems the superior in their technological advancement.
Now it turns out that the BBC story was a hoax.
Even in an age when cynical sleuths can hyper-analyze stories for truth and accuracy, the occasional hoax still slips through the cracks. Such was the case with a so-called "lost Amazon tribe."
A few months ago, mainstream news outlets (including, ahem, Yahoo!) reported that a photographer had found a lost tribe of warriors near the Brazilian-Peruvian border. Photos of the tribe backed up his claim.
As it turns out, the story is only half true. The men in the photo are members of a tribe, but it certainly ain't "lost." In fact, as the photographer, José Carlos Meirelles, recently explained, authorities have known about this particular tribe since 1910. The photographer and the agency that released the pictures wanted to make it seem like they were members of a lost tribe in order to call attention to the dangers the logging industry may have on the group.
The photographer recently came clean, and news outlets, perhaps embarrassed at having been taken for a ride, have been slow to pick up the story. Now, the word is starting to spread and articles in the Buzz are picking up steam. Expect a lot more brutal truth in the coming days.
I wonder if Meirelles is going to lose his job over this? If not, should we really expect the "brutal truth"? He's a government official in the Indian affairs department, deliberately lying to the press. In the original BBC article, Meirelles scolds us all with his self righteous indignation.
He described the threats to such tribes and their land as "a monumental crime against the natural world" and "further testimony to the complete irrationality with which we, the 'civilised' ones, treat the world".
I question the rationality of Meirelles' ends justifying the means.
Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, The Virtuous Republic, Perri Nelson's Website, Rosemary's Thoughts, The Random Yak, third world county, Right Truth, DragonLady's World, The World According to Carl, The Pink Flamingo, , Cao's Blog, Democrat=Socialist, A Newt One, Stageleft, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
