Falsely Identified as Boston Bombing Suspect, Sunil Tripathi Found Dead
It was confirmed today that the body of missing Brown University student Sunil Tripathi has been discovered in the Providence River.
Tripathi was falsely identified as a suspect in the Boston bombings. The Atlantic has a piece tracing how this misinformation spread throughout the media: It Wasn’t Sunil Tripathi: The Anatomy of a Misinformation Disaster.
The media aren’t blameless; they jumped into the feeding frenzy with both feet. But many right wing bloggers who leaped on this false report have not even bothered to correct or update their posts; for example, anti-Muslim demagogue Pamela Geller.