Fasten your seatbelts -- it's time for a rant. Rarely do I let news items make me really angry but when blatant misrepresentations abound I tend to get upset.
Every morning I peruse the stories on Yahoo.com and I then check my Yahoo email. This morning I was totally puzzled to see:
Naomi Judd Cut Daughters Ashley & Wynonna Out Of $25M Will [LINK]
"Singer Naomi Judd cut her daughters Ashley Judd and Wynonna Judd out of her $25 million dollar will.
Earlier this year, the country music community was shocked and saddened to hear that Naomi had lost her long battle with mental illness and taken her own life at age 76.
In a surprising decision, Naomi left her estate and her fortune, which is reported to be around $25 million dollars, to her husband, Larry Strickland, who she married in May 1989.
The Blast was able to confirm the existence of the court document, which states, “I nominate and appoint my spouse, Larry Strickland, as Executor of my estate.”
The document continues, “In the event my spouse ceases or fails to serve, then I nominate and appoint my brother-in-law, Reginald Strickland, and Daniel Kris Wiatr as Co-Executors. I direct that no bond shall be required of my Executor.”
As Page Six reported, the document did not state if either of Naomi's two daughters were named as beneficiaries of any of her assets."
The people at Yahoo and The Blast and Page 6 are obviously idiots. So is the LA Times! They published the same misleading story.
This article is fundamentally ignorant. Every estate has to have an executor. The executor doesn't get to decide who inherits. The executor has to make sure the estate is settled properly, that's all. The executor has to abide by the Will. This says nothing about who inherits according to the actual Will of Naomi Judd. The fact that this article got published when it is utterly misleading really ticks me off -- AND a bunch of other publications have re-run the basic facts of the story showing they are idiots as well.
I know about executors because when my father died in 1996 he specified my mother was to be the executor.
Folks, any journalist work a nickel should have done 5 minutes of research and they would have realized this story is completely ridiculous.
"An executor (also called a “personal representative” in some states) is a person named in a will to carry out the wishes of the deceased person. An executor typically offers the will for probate, takes action to protect the assets of the estate, makes distributions of property to beneficiaries and pays the debts and taxes of the estate."[Source: Forbes]
What's worse, I googled the basic facts and saw that now Google is treating the story as factual.
Kids THIS IS WHY DOING RESEARCH USING GOOGLE alone is risky! Consider the sources. Never use only one source. Look at other stories printed by the source.
#googleuntrustworthy, #googlemisleading, #googlegetsitwrong
