French Media Errors Cause Second Death Of A “Hero”

Ours is an era where going viral is considered a sign of achievement, where being late with a trending item is the paragon of lame, yet where the mind-boggling proliferation of news sources has somehow resulted in the considerable reduction of topics and events covered by an often echoing press. One consequence of that is it’s no longer unusual to see local, national, or even global media jump en masse all over a story, only to discovered down the road that it wasn’t all it seemed—and sometimes wasn’t even close.

Such is the red-faced “oops” France’s media is currently choking on, after it was not so much punked on a story, but punked itself. It’s joined in that discomfort by French political leaders who couldn’t resist surfing the swell of public attention the lavishly hyped tale attracted, and even some readers who were swept up by this latest example of news-as-entertainment, yet should have known better. Because this is not the first time France’s media has had to walk back a supposedly irresistibly dramatic story that turned out to be wrong. And, as in past cases, its failure to fess up to its errors this time suggests it won’t be the last.The current case arose from the Sept. 29 death of 33 year-old Indian national Rajinder Singh, whose nickname “Babu” quickly spread across France as synonymous with the courage and decency amid multiplying stories about his tale. According to press reports in the wake of his death, Babu was killed after being pushed on an electrified Metro rail when he sought to stop a thief stealing a young woman’s iPhone. His selflessness in protecting a victim of crime—and the ultimate price the reportedly quiet, hard-working Babu paid defending what he felt was right—earned him the title of “An Ordinary Hero” in numerous (and not terribly creative) French headlines and TV news reports. To the portion of France’s public concerned with rising crime and waning civic spirit, Babu became the icon of people who refuse to cower before lawlessness, and defend the common good no matter the risks. To others, Babu served as proof against extreme-right claims that crime and immigration are one and the same. A hero and martyr everyone could honor had been born.

And, it seemed, avenged: on Oct. 4 a new wave of reports announced police had arrested a young Egyptian identified by Metro security cameras as the man who gave Babu the fatal shove. Nearly a week later, however, we learn that Babu himself appears to have provoked and pursued the clash that led to his deadly push to the rails—and without any attempted theft preceding it. Indeed, rather than having sought to fight off the hero intervening to thwart his ported cell phone robbery, the Egyptian youth still being held in the case may well have only been defending himself from Babu’s repeated efforts to rough him up. Investigators think Babu may have taken exception to the Egyptian offering candy to female Metro travelers, and sought to avenge it as an overly forward come-on to vulnerable women alone at night. Whatever the origin of the drama, video shot by platform cameras after both men had gotten off the Metro indicates Babu’s repeated gestures to provoke the young Egyptian sparked the apparently defensive push that led to the Indian’s electrocution. As a result, police have reduced the charges they’re holding the Egyptian on from murder to “voluntary violence resulting unintentional death.”

Okay, so it wasn’t a classic clash of good and evil with Babu playing the role of the tragic yet posthumously celebrated hero. So what’s the problem? Around two weeks of enduring, quasi-orchestral hyping and dramatizing of the saga for rather cynical ends, that’s what. Stories delving into Babu’s past described him as having left his “very poor region in the north of India” to work in France six years ago. Reports also depict Babu as having lived modestly in an apartment he shared with several friends, and having scrimped and saved to send money home to a family which (stories added) didn’t even have the funds to repatriate the young man’s body home for burial. Soon they wouldn’t need it. In the wake of such lyrical coverage, the authority operating the Paris Metro pledged to provide money for the return of Babu’s body to India, even as offers of public donations poured in to papers carrying his dramatic story. What’s a bit of schmaltz to keep what seemed like a natural winning story going, right?

And indeed, with media exposure of the story so high, French officials soon felt compelled to get in on it. Among the politicians who stepped up to pay tribute to Babu were Transport Minister Thierry Mariani and Culture Minister Frédéric Mitterrand, who laid flowers in the station where the young man died, and eulogized “poor Babu, who was one of the ordinary heroes who make life better”. Metro authorities went so far as calling on other users to follow Babu’s example to battle crime. At the same time (it goes without saying) homages from admiring strangers exploded on Facebook pages, and online forums bristled with comments praising Babu’s courage and selflessness. Perhaps not surprisingly, most discussion of Babu has abated in light of his apparent aggression and its role in his death, though online commentary about French media treatment of the entire story has prevented the topic from vanishing in silence.

In French papers and newcasts, but contrast, discovery that the story (while still tragic in outcome) apparently wasn’t what it seemed has generated decidedly less coverage than it did when Babu was assumed to be a self-sacrificing victim of crime. Most media that have updated the investigation have buried coverage to relatively brief, inside items. Today’s Libération ran a full-page inquiry into the actions and exchanges that may have led up to the fatal push, but only nods at the media’s errant reporting in passing. By contrast, online magazine Marianne2.fr ran an article Tuesday detailing how the French media got itself into such an inaccurate lather) over the past two weeks. Lacking in any of the follow-up reporting, however, are any chest-poking reminders or solemn mea cuplas that this isn’t the first time audience-grabbing stories have been run wide and hard before the veracity of their bases have been checked out.

The worst recent example of that came in the 2003 “Baudis affair”, which involved wild and unsubstantiated accusations against a prominent politician that most of the French media echoed virtually unfiltered or vetted. The result was one of the broadest cases of collective journalistic irresponsibility in pursuit of a sexy story ever seen. The following year, the French press jumped all over claims by a young woman who said she’d been victim of an anti-Semitic attack on a commuter train, despite the fact she wasn’t Jewish, and amid troubling details about her tale. Those allegations were eventually proven bogus by police, but only after virtually unquestioning media hype around the story prompted French political leaders to step up and condemn the outrage. Less egregious—yet still lamentable—examples of collective rush by France’s media to flog a hot story before fully checking it out have followed–whether it came with widespread coverage of kidnappings that turned out to be hoaxes, or premature presumption of guilt of principles in scandals like the baffling Clearstream affair.

Of course, France’s media isn’t alone in occasionally getting too far ahead of a fishy story—or worse. Both the Washington Post and New York Times were once stunned to discover star reporters had simply made up key elements in stories (fabrication by a Pulitzer Prize winner in the Post’s case). And virtually the entire American establishment is still living down its role in reporting as fact false information provided by Bush administration officials to sell its Iraq war. Meanwhile, media in both the US and UK also occasionally get stories—both big and small–grievously wrong. A recent example of that came with The Daily Mail’s seriously damaging (and incorrect) article about the financial health of French bank Société Générale. But even in the ethics-tainted English press, serious errors tend to be acknowledged, corrected, and apologized for (though only after hundreds of millions of dollars were lost by its victim once the Daily Mail acknowledged its mistake).

Why aren’t any apologies heard—or people who signed off on astonishingly incorrect stories fired—in France after outrages like the “Baudis affair”, or even less slanderous Babu coverage? Ironically, the silence that usually follows such collective professional fault seems to reflect a feeling in French media that if all outlets make the same massive errors, no single outlet need step up and cop to individual blame. After all, when an entire team is offside, what one player is the referee going to blame as errant if no one sticks up a culpable hand? But while that “just act like nothing happened” ploy may prevent faces in any single French editorial office from reddening more than any other over fumbles like the Babu coverage, it also raises the risks that no real lessons will be learned from such screw-ups. And that, in turn, means it’s only a question of time before we see another one like them occupying French headlines again.