I was about to get up on my soapbox again about the failings of American journalism in this day and age, but maybe I'll just settle for pondering a little. Besides, this isn't about my usual complaints when it comes to reporting the news. This story was not shoved out there in an attempt to beat everyone else to the scoop. It's just a lack of follow up, that's all.
Last month in Goodyear, AZ, a Goodwill store reported to the police that someone had donated a human skull to them. Just Google "Goodwill skull," and you'll get a lot of hits. A bunch of articles about this one story, all dated Sept. 6-8. You won't find any new developments after those dates because this news story, apparently, wasn't important enough to get more details. The media all got together and decided this one was just worth the shits and giggles and nothing else.
Here's what we know. Someone donated the skull. Who? Eh, an unimportant detail. Not worth looking into. The skull was examined by the ME, and it was determined that it was human and that it was not involved in a crime. At least not recently. This, as it turns out, is an historical skull. Possibly ancient. We can get answers, but no one is willing to ask the questions. Also, we know that it had that glass eye you see above. So we know that whoever this person was, he only had one eye.
If I was just one (1) of those journalists, I would have circled back to find out more about this story. It's fascinating. Why would anyone drop off an ancient human skull at a Goodwill? Did the police even investigate? I don't imagine they did. Once they found out it wasn't evidence of a crime that could be prosecuted, they understandably lost interest. It's not their job. But surely someone must have wondered where this fuckin' thing came from. I get it. It's difficult to go to a news site and find any headlines not about Trump or Israel vs. Hamas or the speaker of the House. Everyone's focusing on these things, which is why I would argue that someone *should* investigate the skull. A lot of journalists are covering those three things. Put someone else on the skull thing.
I told a little tiny lie earlier in this piece. If you Google Goodwill skull, there is one hit that stands out from the rest, and it's this li'l guy here. Almost ten years ago three (3) human skulls were donated to *another* Goodwill, this one in Washington State. Was it the same person who donated one in Goodyear, AZ? And is Goodwill a decent place to get rid of a skull if you have one taking up space at home? At least there was some follow up with that story, but if you'll allow me to revisit last night's topic a little, that was nearly a decade ago. Our attention spans have dwindled since then, have they not? So maybe that's what's happening here.
Does no one have a healthy sense of curiosity anymore? I hate to end on a trite note, but while curiosity may have killed the cat, satisfaction brought him back.
So let's not end on a trite note. Instead, let's talk about something this news story reminded me of. Maybe twenty-five years ago I heard a story about a guy who bought a smoker from a yard sale. When he got home and decided to fire it up, he opened it and discovered a human leg in there. The original owner of the smoker had only one leg. It turned out that he'd used the smoker to store his amputated leg because he didn't want to get rid of it.
Goddammit, they let him keep an entire leg? But when I wanted to keep my first amputated toe, they said it would be impossible? That it had to go in the incinerator or to a funeral home to hold onto it until I die? What the fuck?
Anyway, the guy tried suing to get his leg back. I was about to say that I didn't know how it all turned out, but I Googled it right now and HOLY SHIT THERE'S A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT THIS ONE! It's called Finders Keepers, so I'm going to have to watch that sometime soon. It turns out that my memory's bad. It was more like 20 years. And it wasn't a yard sale. It was a storage auction. Ordinarily I'd go back and rewrite this portion with the corrections, but I wanted to illustrate how you can get it wrong sometimes. If I was posting this to a news site, I would have gotten it wrong because I would be in a hurry to beat the others to the scoop. I would have then had to post a correction that no one would have read, so everyone who read the original article would go the rest of their lives thinking that was the truth.
THAT'S why it's important to get it right the first time. THAT'S why you can't rush real journalism.
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