On That Story of Chinese Mistress Driving Lover and 4 Rivals off a Cliff... A Fake Story

Remember that juicy story last week of the Chinese mistress that convinced her rivals and her lover to go for a drive? The mistress that then drove them all off a cliff in revenge for being dumped for one of the rivals by the lover?

Great story. It had pathos, humor, revenge and... apparently it never happened. The U.S. media picked this story up from the Chinese speaking media and ran with it last week but obviously didn't do much by way of checking the accuracy of the tale. Turns out the Chinese "reporter" that wrote the story pulled a Jayson Blair -- he made up the whole thing.

CNN repeated the tall tale, so did Time Magazine, as did the New York Daily News. Then AOL News repeated the CNN copy, as did a host of other outlets. Along with the U.S. media a bunch of European and Australian news outlets also picked up the false tale (Like the Telegraph, the Scotsman and the Calgary Herald).

What supposedly happened was a rich (and married) Chinese businessman that was finding it hard to pay for his five mistresses held a lascivious dance competition among the rivals to decide which one he'd keep. After the contest and the selection, one of the spurned girl friends convinced them all to take a last drive together which supposedly resulted in a drive off a cliff in an effort to kill all involved.

The spurned woman heard around the world, however, turns out to have been a fabrication by Chinese writer Yi Lei from the Peneinsula Metropolis Daily in Shanghai.

Once again we see the Old Media running with a story without having performed the requisite due diligence of a good reporter. What, Who, When and where was covered. But having more than one source to assure veracity was sadly neglected.

Looks like this Chinese Jayson Blair fooled the world.

(H/T NewsBusters reader Cristy Li)