Fake News: It's been going on a long time: Dog attacks

As a researcher by trade, and a dog lover, over the last 20 years I have been documenting "fake news" as it pertains to dog attacks.

I have found that the media regularly traffics in rumor and accusation, putting entertainment and sensationalism ahead of truth and accuracy; and purposely speculating, ignoring or manipulating facts to increase the dramatic effect of a dog attack story.

Here is only one example (of hundreds) that I have documented on "fake news" on cases of dog attacks.

On August 3rd, 40-year-old Jacob Adams was found dead on the Brentwood, California property of actor Ving Rhames with four of Rhames' dogs nearby.

Over the next 4 days, from August 3 - 6, 2007, over 300 media sources reported, as fact, that Mr. Adams was either "killed" or "mauled to death" by Mr. Rhames' dogs.

On August 7, 2007, an autopsy was performed by the Los Angeles County Coroner. The preliminary results of the autopsy found that the dogs did NOT cause the death of Mr. Adams. The Coroner's Office revealed that although Mr. Adams sustained bite and claw marks on his extremities, the injuries were determined to be "superficial" and not sufficient to cause his death.

On August 9th, despite the huge media blitz surrounding this case, only TWO media sources, The LA Canyon and The Globe and Mail, reported the results of the autopsy that determined Mr. Adams was NOT killed by the dogs.

On August 14th, Ving Rhames released a respectful and factual statement as to the death of his friend and the alleged involvement of his dogs. Mr. Rhames quotes the preliminary autopsy findings that the dogs were not responsible for the death and offers his condolences to the family of Mr. Adams.

Unbelievably, these are some of the (fake) news articles that were printed in response to Mr. Rhames statement to the press:

"Ving Rhames Assumes His Dogs are Innocent"
"Ving Rhames Solves Dogs Attack Case Before Official Report"
"Ving Jumps to Conclusions in Dog Attack Case"

WTF?

So, to add insult to injury, not only did the hundreds of media sources (that falsely claimed Mr. Adams was killed by dogs) not report the findings of the coroner, but some even had the audacity to imply that Mr. Rhames was the one speculating on the cause of death of his friend!

In addition, in their haste to report this story, the media was just wildly picking out different dog breeds as the dogs "responsible" for the "attack." Mr. Rhames' dogs were alternately identified in the media to be either: Mastiffs, Bullmastiffs, Fila Brasileiro, English Bulldog, Bulldog or, of course, Pit bull.

A search of the internet today will yield many of these fake news stories still exist in all their "fakeness."

No small surprise, one of the first articles that comes up is a CNN news story:

Man mauled to death at Ving Rhames' home - CNN.com
www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Movies/08/03/people.vingrhames.../index.html?iref...
Aug 3, 2007 - Massive dogs belonging to "Mission: Impossible" star Ving Rhames attacked and killed a live-in caretaker at the actor's Los Angeles home ...

So, "fake news" is real and has been around for a long time now.