Erroneous AP report about woman who supposedly swam across Atlantic Ocean

Woman who swam Atlantic Ocean is a fraud:

http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing/blog/fourth_place_medal/post/The-great-Atlantic-Ocean-swimming-hoax?urn=oly,140525

My favorite part from the Yahoo link:

Yeah, well, so did Yahoo. And Sports Illustrated. And ESPN. And Fox News. And likely shit tons of other outlets.

So this is what sports journalism has come to. Perhaps instead of blaming this woman, which the final sentence in the Yahoo story seems to do, these news organizations should take a hard look in the mirror.

 

Re: Woman who swam Atlantic Ocean is a fraud

But they came back with the story about this guy, who set a world record by throwing a football farther than anyone else.

 

Re: Woman who swam Atlantic Ocean is a fraud

Maybe they thought she had it on fast-forward.

 

Re: Woman who swam Atlantic Ocean is a fraud

It sounds like to me that the headline for this thread is as wrong as the original stories that misrepresented what the woman was doing/did. Sounds to me like she never said she "jumped in the water at point A and got out at Point B, like Nemo."

 

Re: Woman who swam Atlantic Ocean is a fraud

Maybe the AP just ran a watered down version of her feat.

 

Re: Woman who swam Atlantic Ocean is a fraud

The thread title is the exact same headline Yahoo is using on its main page... so there's some added commentary on them "coming clean."

It's not "we fucked up," like it should be.

EDIT: Yahoo has just now changed it to "Woman didn't really swim across Atlantic"

 

Re: Woman who swam Atlantic Ocean is a fraud

The funny this is I currently live in her hometown and the area really did not seem to give a damn about it. Maybe I was missing something, but I never really heard anything about it.

 

Re: Woman who swam Atlantic Ocean is a fraud

Just another poster incident indicting the "Institutional memory? Ahhh, F--K those guys"
mindset. Excellent.

 

Re: Woman who swam Atlantic Ocean is a fraud

The boys on PTI pointed this out Monday, saying it seemed impossible and that she used a bout an awful lot. One of them said "I really question the validity of this claim."

 

Re: Woman who swam Atlantic Ocean is a fraud

It really does just boil down to simple FACT CHECKING, though. That the Associated Press apparently ran the original story without taking even a few seconds to question the validity of the claim is nothing short of outrageous.

Of course, then all these other major outlets picked this off the wire without a second thought and ran off the same cliff, lemming style. And none of them, to my knowledge, are shouldering any responsibility.

The whole situation is just so sad. :-\

 

Re: Woman who swam Atlantic Ocean is a fraud

This post is a fraud.

She never said she swam the whole thing. A lot of media outlets made it seem like she did, but she admitted that she used the boat that was with her quite a bit. And I believe she swam in a box to avoid sharks and other possibly deadly threats.

Media people wanted something, and they misinterpreted the feat.

 

I have altered the title of this thread to prevent posts like this ^^^ from people who apparently have not read the thread up to this point.

ICU, what you wrote about her never saying she swam the whole thing is entirely accurate.

What I am questioning is how this story about an impossible feat made it past an Associated Press editor and then onto the Web sites of SO MANY national media outlets.