Correction

Goddamn, I hate giving corrections, especially on stories that I didn't do the original reporting on in the first place; it sucks and it calls into question my reliability, but this must be done (The Corsair quickly shoots back a glass of Cutty Sark). I posted about the Catherine Zeta Jones near kidnap story based on This Sun story with reporting by the dubious combo of one Sara Nathan and her cohort Thomas Whitaker, who appear to both have achieved their journalism degrees from the Carvel College of Knowledge.

The story is probably false, as I learned from Defamer, who took a more cautious -- "it sounds too good to be true," approach, as opposed to my -- "holy fuck, I've got to blog on this!" modus operandi.

According to the wire service:

"A car in which actress Catherine Zeta-Jones was riding was involved in a minor traffic accident Friday in the city of San Luis Potosi, spawning rumors of a kidnapping attempt on the star.

"Authorities said there was no such attempt and that no one was injured in the fender-bender."

I regret the error, but, to be honest, this sort of thing is going to happen in blogs, where speed is of the essence, accuracy is determined at a later dat (unfortunately) and I am at the mercy of factcheckers at the newspapers and magazines from which I draw my Daily Bread (Gossip, dirt, poop, whatever).

But I've learned a little something from this embarrassing experience, I'm a bit jaded now, and I'll definitely delve in a bit deeper if a story sounds too good to be true before publishing it online.

And I'll be a bit more wary of those Brit papers as well.

Fuckers.