Lyons: The oddly timed Snooty hoax that didn't exist - Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Tom Lyons Columnist @tomlyonsht

Talk about ironic.

As best I can figure it, a Herald-Tribune reporter’s accurate and clearly stated story about fake Snooty news and other made-up stuff has accidentally inspired more of the same, or at least a big misunderstanding.

To be clear: No hoaxster bizarrely made up and reported a false story about Bradenton’s famous manatee’s dying just days before Snooty’s actual, accidental and unexpected death by drowning.

Snooty is dead, yes. That’s still true. But the weird hoax-coincidence thing didn’t happen, no matter how much you may think so.

If I’m lyin’, I’m dyin’.

Here’s what did happen, and though still a concidence, it just isn’t all that weird.

A few days before Snooty died, a panelist spoke at a Tiger Bay forum where the topic was fake news. He happened to give an example in which a hoaxster had falsely posted on Facebook that Snooty was dead. The panelist said a TV news station fell for it and reported it as true.

It was true, but his example wasn’t brand new. The nasty hoax he mentioned happened in 2014, and the mistaken TV news story had been quickly corrected back then.

But when the panelist told that story, he didn’t say when it happened. The Herald-Tribune news story quoting the panelist didn’t either. The date didn’t seem all that relevant to the point about hoaxes that fool people, sometimes including news people.

In the few days after that story about the Tiger Bay discussion, some stuff happened. Snooty had his 69th birthday bash and lots of South Florida museum visitors saw him.

That night or early the next morning, he drowned, after swimming through a normally closed plumbing access port and being unable to get back out of an underwater plumbing chamber.

But before his birthday party and unexpected death, some not-so-careful readers had apparently misunderstood the story about the panel discussion. Though the very first sentence of that story clearly stated that Snooty was alive, some maybe saw only the first five words of the headline.

It said: “Snooty the manatee is dead, and other fake news.”

Those who misunderstood started posting condolences and such, accidentally spreading their false conclusion that Snooty was really dead. As supposed confirmation, some posted links to the very Herald-Tribune story that actually stated otherwise. Even so, not all figured it out.

Soon the mistaken belief was a full-blown rumor, but it was quickly debunked by reports of Snooty’s birthday party. So a new assumption arose: Everyone had been hoaxed by fake news that came out just says before the actual death.

Not so. I can find no fake news story. It was just a misunderstanding. Snooty’s accidental death so very soon afterward is an odd coincidence, but nothing more.

Many people may still have the strong impression that a hoaxster had clairvoyantly or otherwise “predicted” the death of the beloved manatee a few days in advance. Some even think that the non-existent hoax mentioned the cause of death with uncanny predictive accuracy.

Um, no. Best I can figure, that idea is based on someone’s jumbled misunderstanding of the timeline. I know of no mention of cause of death that appeared before Snooty was dead and the circumstances reported by the museum staff.

There are legitimate questions about how the heck the bolted hatch blocking the access port fell out of place. Manatees have drowned in lots of man-made spaces such as concrete culverts, but Snooty was well cared for and checked daily, which is one reason he lived longer than any known manatee.

But that hatch thing aside, there is nothing mysterious about Snooty’s death and no one uncannily predicted anything.

The hoaxster who said Snooty was dead back in 2014 was just a liar. Snooty’s death was bound to happen eventually. He was the oldest manatee known.

But others with no intent to lie may have much the same effect when they repeat rumors and shaky assumptions as facts.

“BOLTS DON'T MAGICALLY COME LOOSE,,,,THEY'RE BOLTS!!!! THIS WAS AN ACT OF EVIL” someone just adamantly tweeted.

Actually, humans and hardware both can fail without involvement by magic or evil.

That tweet was posted with the hashtag #JusticeForSnooty, by the way. Given that some protesters have already waved signs outside the museum that was Snooty’s home and demanded “Who killed Snooty,” it seems conspiracy theory spinners will have a ready audience.

If their tales included a psychic who writes about unexpected celebrity animal deaths just before they happen, or a manatee killer who foreshadowed his crime in advance with a fake death report, some people will happily fall for it, as usual.

I can’t wait for the calls and emails demanding to know why I and the Herald-Tribune are covering it all up.

Tom Lyons can be reached at tom.lyons@heraldtribune.com

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