Forbes reports that a group of New Guinea tribesmen are suing
The New Yorker, famed for its rigorous fact-checking, over a story depicting them as raping, pillaging, murderous pig thieves. Jared Diamond, the renowned geographer, wrote the story, "
Vengeance Is Ours," for the April 21, 2008, issue.
A two-page complaint filed in New York State Supreme Court on April 20 seeks $10 million from the New Yorker's
publisher, Advance Publications, claiming Diamond's story falsely
accused Wemp and fellow tribesman Isum Mandigo of "serious criminal
activity" and "murder."
Diamond
is a best-selling author and winner of a National Science Medal and the
MacArthur Foundation's "genius award." But Wemp has some academic
backing of his own. Rhonda Roland Shearer, director of the New York
City-based Art Science Research Lab, whose media ethics project,
stinkyjournalism.org, will soon release a 40,000-word study on
Diamond's story.
Shearer dispatched researchers to New Guinea
and interviewed 40 anthropologists to fact-check Diamond's story with a
fine-tooth comb. The result, as summed up by the report's working
title: "Jared Diamond's Factual Collapse: The New Yorker's Papua New Guinea Revenge Tale Untrue."
TNY stands by the story. No word from Pulitzer-Prize winner Jared Diamond yet, though.
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