The Jeyarajs then learned that a nurse who worked in the hospital wished to take the baby as she had lost her own. Fearing for the safety of their son, the Jeyarajs then went to the Kalmunai police to lodge a complaint in an attempt to officially reclaim their child.
Around this time, a reporter from an international news service arrived at the Kalmunai hospital, which is located in an area of Sri Lanka devastated by the tsunami. Based upon an interview with a doctor, the reporter picked up on the missing baby story. While aware that no formal claims were filed, the coverage of the story was distorted to make it appear that many mothers were after a single child. It was somehow determined that the number of mothers after the baby totaled nine.
A few short days later, this story made headline news all over the world, from local channels in Sri Lanka to the BBC and CNN.
But no one fact checked the story.
All it took was a day in Kalmunai to figure out that the Baby 81 story is simply not true.
If you ask any of the doctors in the hospital, they’ll tell you that they never had any doubt about the identity of the parents. But when you ask them if there were other women claiming the baby the answer is always yes. When you ask them how they know this, they’ll reply that they saw it on TV or read it in the papers. Ask them if they ever saw any of the women other than Juanita and the answer will be no.
The Kalmunai police have never seen anyone other than the Jeyarajs make a formal claim on the baby. The Kalmunai magistrate knows of no one other than the Jeyarajs as well. But, again, the Kalmunai Police's OIC (Officer in Charge) and the Kalmunai magistrate will tell you that they're positive there were nine women who wished to claim the baby. They're certain because they saw it on the TV.
As the media began to scramble for a story that wasn't there, the lie began to snowball. It grew to the point where even the people involved started to believe it. Kalmunai is a small town, yet no one there has heard of any of the other women who supposedly attempted to claim the baby.
Article comments
1 - Phillip Winn
A search on "baby 81" right now is interesting -- lots of articles from major news sources reporting about how nine different families claimed the baby, none with any retractions or corrections or anything. Amazing.
2 - Cheesefries
wow.... how gay i just wasted 5 minutes reading this
3 - BOV
WHO CARES?
4 - Eric Berlin
Yes, Lord forbid the news gets reported accurately. Why waste time worrying about that?
5 - Steve C.
Accuracy? Who cares about that when we've got a moving story? :-P
6 - Aaman
Now, if this were a report about how American Idol is a lizard recruiting model, and those who drop out, well, drop in;) - the commenters above would be totally riveted to the machinations of media
7 - Aristus
"Does everyone in the media know it was a lie?"
Probably not. As your article points out, even the doctors who were THERE are fuzzy about the truth now. No one in "the media" is magically immune to the effect of media blitzes. That, and no one really cares. The job of the "media" is to grab people by the emotional gonads and make them feel better about themselves.
8 - Sue
I gotta say...I agree with BOV and Cheesefries in regard to this story.
9 - Eric Berlin
Sue, you're entitled to your position, but in my view that attitude reinforces the ability of the media to throw stories out there that may or may not be fully true.
I personally find it hard to believe that anyone finds that acceptable. If you can't trust "facts," then what can you trust?
10 - RJ Elliott
The "not-entirely-correct story that becomes a global meme" issue is a serious one for the media to deal with.
Thank you for putting this all on the record...
11 - Matthew Milam
It's the same thing when you watch a movie based on a true story, some of the facts are going to be changed. The only different is that the "media" shouldn't be reporting make-believe or half-assed reports. But to a certain extent, reporters don't really care anymore and are tired of fighting the cause.
Now it's up to regular readers to find the truth for themsleves.
12 - Phillip Winn
I'm amazed at how many people are basically saying, "I don't care if the media completely makes stuff up."
I'm starting to wonder, is there really a war on? Was there even really a tsunami? Maybe there haven't really been any new Supreme Court justices in the last year, just a few folks the media wanted to put on TV screens.
That's crazy, folks. We depend on media sources to report the truth, and to own up to it when they get it wrong. People lose their jobs over this kind of thing, generally.
13 - Diane Kristine
I think some of the blase attitude comes from the fact that it's not a new discovery, that the media sometimes reports innuendo as fact and distorts molehills into mountains. Add to that the fact that the tsunami baby story wasn't a hard news story (and one I don't remember hearing about the first time around), with no effect on our lives whether it's true or not (unlike stories about our governments, for example), and you've got jaded and disinterested. Sad, but not unexpected.
14 - Aaman
Perhaps the attitude is because it happened 'over there'
15 - Suzie
Well I agree with the writer..
People should get facts straight... when my niece was murdered by her father in 1997... the newspapers here stated that he had killed my sisters son...
They even said they would type an apology and never did... think of the families who are involved before you start saying who cares..we had family calling us asking if both my sisters children had been murdered..and yes media causes unnecessary trouble in a time of need..
SO, If you don't care, don't read it..
don't leave a comment.. and have some compassion for the people whos lives are effected by lies and untruths..
16 - StillHere2550
It may help to consider the initial circumstances facing the reporters. The people of the island of Sri Lanka were enduring true horror and chaos; it was hot, muggy, and rumours were flying.
The false story of many women seeking one living child struck a chord with people around the world, because the story dramatized the true circumstances that were going on for tens of thousands of people who survived: extreme grief, shock, confusion, unreliable information about missing loved ones,and desperate hope of being reunited.
Since many survived by running or climbing trees, a disproportionate number of the dead were weak people: babies, young children, and the elderly. Hence the story of one small child survivor lighting up hopes for many adults who were missing a child was believable.
Even if reporters had tried to dig into the real facts they likely faced a cultural obstacle. The majority people's (the Singhalese) culture views it as generally inappropriate and risky to correct another person's wrong ideas (lest you embarrass yourself or the other person). Also I've noticed that they rarely volunteer any information to outsiders; they pass along facts hesitantly, when absolutely necessary. A reporter who didn't know the culture could easily make mistakes that he wouldn't make in his home country.
And why not make a lot of effort to correct the story? Perhaps because it would suggest that the true losses, confusion, grief, hope and pain that the story gave voice to had also been false.
17 - SL
...Is the mother's name Juanita or Jenita like I'm seeing on other sites. Funny, this Morguendi who apparently knows the whole truth and nothing but the truth seemed to slip and put a half-assed Mexican name in an Indian culture...
I'd like to see her signature please.
I can't care too much when I know I'll never see the truth
18 - Jaebird
lol