Chimp makes a chump out of gullible media

REEL NEWS:Do you remember, a little less than a decade ago, when some mad cult announced that it had cloned the first human being? It was Christmas and, while all the news analysts slept, the story was reported in surprisingly unquestioning fashion.

Something similar happened this Yuletide, when many outlets reported that Cheeta (sometimes “Cheetah”), the ape who played Tarzan’s best friend in the classic movies, had died at the staggering age of 80.

But was the story really true? As long ago as 2009, RD Rosen, a journalist with the Washington Post, asserted that Cheeta was not what his minders pretended. Born as recently as 1960 (still old for a chimp, it should be said), he had never appeared as Tarzan's mate nor, indeed, as any other Hollywood primate.

Rosen’s suspicions were raised by an insecure incident right at the start of the story told by Tony Gentry, Cheeta’s keeper. Gentry claimed that he smuggled Cheeta on a transatlantic flight from Liberia in 1932. But wait a moment! There were no transatlantic flights in 1932. That service commenced in 1939. The story unravelled from there.

By the time news outlets had noticed the controversy, the story had taken another unexpected turn. It seemed that the elderly chimp – whether imposter or not – had not died at all. There was some muddle with a press release.

The story that never was.