G.I. Janus-face
In July 2014, The Bollard published a story about a young man named Patrick Turner (“Have Camera, Will Shoot”), who was involved in several local media businesses at the time. Turner claimed to be a Marine Corp veteran who’d served as a combat photographer in Iraq and Afghanistan, a claim we published in addition to several photographs Turner said he took in war zones during his tours of duty.
Shortly before last month’s issue went to press, we received an e-mail from a reader who alerted us that at least one of the images we’d published as part of that story, and credited to Turner, was in fact the work of another military photographer. Further research led us to question whether any of the photos Turner had provided us for the article, and claimed as his own, were actually his work.
Reached for comment last month, Turner was unable to verify that he had taken any of the images he provided to us in the summer of 2014, though he denied that he willfully claimed another’s work as his own. “I was under the impression they were mine,” he wrote in an e-mail on Jan. 14. “I’ve taken thousands of pictures so I didn’t question the images. I wouldn’t send something that I didn’t believe was mine. At the time I honestly did.”
Turner was also unable or unwilling last month to verify basic details of his purported military service. In light of this, The Bollard took the unprecedented step of removing the entire article from our website last month. We sincerely regret having failed to properly fact-check Turner’s claims at the time.
No, seriously, that’s my dump!
A few years after we first wrote about the then-dumpy, vacant house at 9 Amerescoggin Rd., in Falmouth [“That’s My Dump!” Sept. 2010], its new owner, Marian Starkey, contacted us to tell us that she and her husband had bought the place and intended to fix it up. We intended to reconnect with Starkey before revisiting her property for the next That’s My Dump! Five Year Reunion, but, frankly, I forgot.
Last month, shortly after the latest Reunion hit the streets, Starkey e-mailed to remind us that we’d promised to reconnect (again, sorry about that) and castigated The Bollard for taking “cheap shots” at the Falmouth Foreside neighborhood where she resides (we’d poked fun at its reputation as an expensive place to live, for which we are less apologetic). More to the point, she pointed out that the complete rehab of the property is actually is very cool project that deserves some ink. We agree.
The new domicile is a “net zero modular house” that Starkey’s husband, Alex, “largely built himself,” she wrote, by installing wood floors, a kitchen, a bathroom, and many other fixtures and features (like a heated mudroom and back deck) to the basic boxes delivered to the site in the fall of 2014.
“While Mr. [Patrick] Banks’ jabs at Falmouth Foreside might have made you chuckle, a story about the hard work a young couple has put in to live in this beautiful — and, indeed, expensive — seaside neighborhood would have been more honest, genuine, and frankly, compelling,” Marian Starkey wrote. Again, we agree.
— Chris Busby
