This article was translated byย John R. Bopp
In the last few days, weโve found several different international media sources and blogs telling us that visitors to the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum โwere admiring a cleaning cart at the Guggenheim, believing it was a work of artโ. ย This is the type of information that both for its form and for its depth ought to be placed in quarantine by any media source worth its salt.
Many of us have experienced what itโs like to โfaceโ a museum or gallery art piece and not be able to make heads or tails of it. ย But even with that experience the idea that a cleaning cart could be confused with a work of art seems excessive. ย Even we find it difficult to imagine anyone on the cleaning staff would be out cleaning during visiting hours, or that they would leave it in the middle of the room.
So, we decided to see if there were any truth to this โstoryโ, and figure out its origin.
Firstly, the photo seemed to be a photoshop, and a bad one at that. ย But that could also just be a personal perception, despite the fact that the size, definition, and shadows of the cart and of the other elements and people in the photo didnโt match up. ย Our doubts were cleared up when we googled โcleaning cartโ.
Weโll leave you with the image they used in their โreportโ and the image of one of those carts we found with a simple Google search.
So then we got down to figuring out where this report came from, and we found in on La Voz del Becario, a parody news site with headlines as serious as โTV chef caught buying frozen croquettesโ or โJudge orders the Big Brother VIP house to be locked with the contestants insideโ.
So far, so good. ย When it stops being good is when that parody article, published on a humor site, becomes news that appears on โseriousโ media outlets, or blogged by people with โcriteriaโ as true.
Some media, such as Diario Uno in Argentina, seems to have realized how ridiculous the report was and has deleted the article, though other media have published the report citing the Argentine paper as the โoriginal sourceโ. ย
An interesting example of how the inflation of information and a clear loss of quality of the media can lead to situations as embarrassing as this one. ย It doesnโt seem too difficult to fact check a story like this one–it only takes a few minutes. ย But it seems that these minutes are worth a lot more than the respect a media source should have for its readers.
This isnโt the first time weโve come across false news that has become โnewsโ on the sites of โserious media outletsโ. ย We found another paradigmatic example in 2012: that Athletic fans were traveling to Budapest, not Bucharest, to see the Europa League final.
El Dรญa de Uruguay – 14/2/2016 – Uruguay
Admiraban un carrito de limpieza creyendo que era una obra de arte
Una confusiรณn sucedida el pasado domingo en el Museo Guggenheim de Bilbao ha causado que varios visitantes admiraran un carrito de la limpieza durante cuatro horas como si fuera una obra de arte.
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La prensa Libre – ย 14/2/2016 ย – Costa Rica
Confundieron carrito de limpieza con obra de arteโฆ por cuatro horas
Un hecho bastante curioso sucediรณ este domingo dentro de un museo ubicado en la ciudad espaรฑola de Bilbao, donde varios amantes del arte confundieron un simple carrito de limpieza con una moderna obra de arte, equivocaciรณn que durรณ 4 horas en despejarse.
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Mercado – 14/2/2016 – Argentina
Carro de limpieza confundido con obra de arte
Ocurriรณ una confusiรณn el pasado domingo en el Museo Guggenheim de Bilbao cuando un grupo de personas rodeรณ el carro de la limpieza abandonado accidentalmente en una de las salas por una de las empleadas de mantenimiento. La gente observรณ el carro durante cuatro horas como si fuera una obra de arte mรกs.
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Last Updated on Dec 20, 2020 by About Basque Country