Perhaps Journalists Should Do A Wee Bit More Background Research...

Perhaps it's fitting that I've been on a tear about due diligence lately (both here and on my BiggerPockets blog). Of course, I've been talking about due diligence on real estate, whereas this latest journalistic/academic catastrophe comes from a lack of due diligence elsewhere.

The fake sex doctor who conned the media into publicizing his bizarre research on suicide, butt-fisting, and bestiality https://t.co/slhWRyVxiy pic.twitter.com/tKSIvHyYrv

— Gizmodo (@Gizmodo) March 2, 2019

"Butt-Fisting..." 

Here's how Gizmodo's article begins,

If you look up Dr. Damian Jacob Markiewicz Sendler online, you might think he has a MD and a PhD from Harvard Medical School. He presents himself as the chief of sexology at a non-profit health research foundation based in New York. His website states he’s one of the youngest elected members of the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, and that Barack Obama gave him a President’s Gold Service Award for his contributions in medicine and mental health.

Based on the information available online, Sendler could be one of the most accomplished 28-year-olds in medicine. 
​
But he’s not. Those are all lies.

This guy has been published or extensively quoted in all sorts of noteworthy publications; from Forbes to The Huffington Post to Vice to Men's Health to Women's Health to Bustle to I Fucking Love Science. He'd also been on Dan Savage's podcast. And it was to promote a fraud. 

Perhaps if you don't want to be labeled "fake news," a bit more background research than perusing the Internet is called for...