By the New York Times! (Well, Reuters, but picked up by the NYT.) Anyway, apparently a poor Spanish doctor was vacationing on the Congo river (as people often do) when we happened upon some rebels. What did they do? They kidnapped our man, who was subsequently “shaved completely by Ibrahim (a rebel leader) who believes in magical fetishes made with hair and body hair of whites.” Is this really newsworthy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This story then dominated the news cycle for several days until today, the Congolese army announced that they had rescued the doctor in a “commando” operation. Again, the New York Times (via Reuters) picked up the story; here’s the first paragraph:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Congo’s army said on Tuesday it had rescued a Spanish doctor from rebels who had held him for nearly two weeks and reportedly shaved his hair for war fetishes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Ahhh! What’s up with his hair!?! Really, in the first paragraph? I know that no news sells like hair fetish news, but really?<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A quick update on the bizarre events that have been unfolding in Mbandaka. As you may recall, a group of rebels attacked the airport in the town, the capital of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t