“The strangest thing I’ve tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father,” the Rolling Stones rocker, Keith Ricards, was quoted saying. By the top of the day on April 4th, major media outlets reprinted the headlining quote. USA Today, Yahoo! News, The Guardian (UK) and more all ran the quote in that Richards snorted his cremated father with cocaine.
All of them failed to check facts.
A simple call to Richard’s press rep would have cleared things up, but no media outlet had bothered to check. The story circulated from 1010Wins, to your 10’o clock news, New York Post, and nearly every online news and blog outlet, frankly because I think everyone wanted it to be true. After all, Richards is a high-profile rock-n-roller with a history of bizarre acts.
A correction ran several hours later, distributed by MTV. Richards said the quote was “said in jest” and “can't believe anyone took [it] seriously.”
The writer responsible for the NME interview and misinterpretation is Mark Beaumont, the center of the media storm. Beaumont makes no apology, but does comment on the interview with Richards on his blog. It seems to me that Beaumont is so self-centered on his one-day journalism celebrity roused by a misinterpreted quote that he conveniently left out an apology.
Not that I was looking for one. But this incident just goes to show the fallibility of journalism and mass-reprinted incorrections.
Bianca Posterli @ Sun, 04/08/2007 - 8:32pm
While I really hope this story is NOT true, I can't help but think this was just a cover up on the part of Richard's PR rep.
~Bianca