Baby parts story from 1989 Awake magazine

by OrphanCrow 10 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  OrphanCrow

  *This post was prompted by a reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/comments/7eqno4/jehovahs_witnesses_promote_truth_by_verifying/

  So.

  The Org makes the claim that

  "Anyone who reads our publications or views our videos can be confident that the facts were thoroughly researched and are accurate."

  Let's test that claim.

  This little snippet ran in the March 22nd, 1989 Awake magazine in the section Watching the World:

  

  I recently read an article concerning Soviet KGB activities in the 1980s.

  The KGB in the Third World

  This is an excerpt from that article:

  It is, however, possible to identify some causes of widespread anti-American indignation which were clearly of Soviet origin. Among them was the 'baby parts' fabrication which alleged that wealthy Americans were buying up and butchering Latin American children in order to use their bodies for organ transplants. The story was taken up by a Soviet front organization, the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL), and publicized extensively in the press of over fifty countries. Those taken in by the fabrication included groups as remote from the KGB as the Jehovah's Witnesses, who published the story in 1989 in their magazine Awake, which had a world-wide circulation of 11 million copies printed in fifty-four languages. In 1990 an American correspondent in Mexico noted that the 'baby parts' story was still current even in 'the respectable press'...
• 

  OneEyedJoe

  Considering that this particular hoax seems to have been fairly widespread, I think a reasonable argument could be made that they could well have done their full due diligence and still have published it as they did. This is certainly not the case with a great many of their deceptions, though, wherein they either purposely or thoughtlessly misquote or misatribute sources to forward whatever their current goal is.
• 

  AnonVet

  Fake News!

  
  
• 

  steve2

  The Awake was - and probably still is - kind of hungry for ghastly stories of human depravity - it "supports" their anti-human nature outlook.

  I'd have thought if the consensus is that the story is a fabrication, the Awake editor needed to print a correction, as any reputable news source would need to do.
  
• 

  Half banana

  Thanks for your research Birdie, the Watchtower mentality is so limited it imagines that by quoting something accurately, then that is all that is required of them. Clearly they have been charged and found guilty of inaccurate quoting but "accuracy" is not the only requirement in publishing.

  Among the failings and blind spots of the writers of JW org are :

  No consideration for the authority of source material

  No consideration for the evidence or truthfulness of source material

  No consideration for the effects of cherry picking parts of a document which would otherwise have led the reader to an opposite conclusion.

  No respect for the hard won scholarly research and evidence of modern textual critics, achaeological findings and scientific discoveries which contradict JW Org.

  Not only is the JW org irresponsible and reckless with information but throughout its whole history, it has produced absolutely no information whatsoever which is advantageous to anybody. . . except for those hooked on their brand of delusional relief from reality.

  If you value your sanity; NEVER LISTEN TO THE JW ORG!
• 

  darkspilver

  OrphanCrow: This little snippet ran in the March 22nd, 1989 Awake magazine in the section Watching the World:
  

  Interesting, thanks for the find.
  

  But you haven't mention the letter that the US Information Agency wrote to the WT about it??

  The letter was printed in the Awake! magazine... check it out here
• 

  darkspilver

  steve2: I'd have thought if the consensus is that the story is a fabrication, the Awake editor needed to print a correction, as any reputable news source would need to do.

  Check out what the Awake editor did ....
  
  
• 

  OrphanCrow

  darkspliver: But you haven't mention the letter that the US Information Agency wrote to the WT about it??

  Oh gosh, no, darkspliver. What would be left for you to do if I did that?

  But, then again...the OP was addressing the claim that the org always fact check first...but, who cares about that, right? Who cares that they claim to always have the truth?

  Yup. They corrected it. Later. Just like the rest of the "world" did.

  Not so special, after all, right?
• 

  darkspilver

  OrphanCrow - I was just 'completing' the story arc.

  I don't need to go back 27 years, interesting though it is, to highlight a lack of accuracy.

  Just this month's (November) JW Monthly Broadcast can be used to do that....

  https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/comments/7cezit/november_broadcast_and_accuracy_of_research/
  
• 

  compound complex

  Hi there, OrphanCrow:

  Many years ago, Awake! had a little blurb at the bottom of a page that described a Laurel-and-Hardy-like slapstick accident in which a workman was loading bricks into a barrel (as I recall). As he raised the barrel to an upper story*, via rope and pulley, the mechanism somehow malfunctioned. The rope, of course, was wrapped around his ankle, unbeknownst to him. The laden barrel came crashing down; Joe Workman got yanked upwards. The barrel full of bricks crashed and split open, emptied of its load. Joe came plummeting down. This had to have been in the '60s.

  Anyway, sometime later there was either a retraction and/or apology wherein the publisher apologized for making light of another person's misfortune.

  I have a head full of useless WT quotations and stories.

  *storey