GERMANY:Germany's media celebrity of the moment is Knut, a baby polar bear born last December in Berlin zoo.
Rejected by his mother at birth, Knut has been raised by hand by zookeepers and will meet his adoring public for the first time tomorrow.
So when Germany's tabloid newspaper Bild suggested that Knut was going to be put down, it caused a minor media earthquake.
The Timesof London, the Guardian, the Daily Mail, the Sunand even the BBC reported on the dastardly plan. The problem is that there was never any plan to kill the bear.
The story originated last December when animal rights expert Frank Albrecht sued Leipzig zoo.
It wanted to put down a baby brown bear who had been rejected by its mother.
Mr Albrecht sued the zoo, pointing out that the bear had been adopted by a dog and was eating and drinking again.
The court allowed the bear to be put down anyway and Mr Albrecht fumed in a press release later that, using the Leipzig court's logic, Knut in Berlin would have to put down too.
Bildtwisted his quote, making it a demand, and ran it under a headline asking "Will Knut be put down?" and everyone fell for it.
"Above all, it's about the pictures, with photos of Knut you can offer any story," said Allan Hall, who wrote the story for the Daily Mailand the Sun.
Kate Connolly of the Guardiansaid: "People were going crazy for this bear and things just sort of developed their own momentum."
One British journalist who didn't write the story said: "Anyone who's read Bild for more than five minutes knows they write these ridiculous question headlines to create a storm only to knock them down again." Bildtold its relieved readers on Tuesday: "Knut will live!"