The print/broadcast headline-grabbing story making the rounds earlier this month about a jilted Polish dentist yanking all the teeth from her 45-year-old ex-boyfriend turns out to be a hoax, notes Grumpy Editor.
The fabricated report, complete with quotes attributed to names of those involved, apparently originated with London’s Daily Mail.
Strangely, the Daily Mail writer behind the story is fuzzy on the origination of the details --- and the story has been yanked from the newspaper's Website.
But, figuring it was a legitimate item, the unusual event was odd enough that print/broadcast editors thought it had enough bite to give it major treatment.
So it made headlines with MSNBC, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, New York Post, ABC News, Fox News, Yahoo! News and many other news outlets in the U.S. and around the world.
Polish police are not investigating the incident --- because they say there is no such case.
A Polish medical association reports there is no such dentist’s name as reported in the story.
Thus, Polish news outlets did not report the teeth-pulling story.
Bottom line: since the story has no teeth, it’s more of a case of someone pulling the leg of a news writer.
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