By: David Bloomberg
Re: Bent Spoon Award

(File:  SRASPOON.ZIP)

(Jeff, you might consider forwarding this to the witchhunt list)

From a New Zealand newspaper (via NZPA), date and actual name are not given in
the copy I have:

                    Satanic claims win Bent Spoon

    A TV3 documentary detailing claims of satanic sexual abuse in rural New
Zealand has won the Bent Spoon Award at the annual Skeptic's conference, held
in Palmerston North at the weekend.
    The award, for journalistic gullibility, is named in honour of Uri Geller,
the nightclub magician turned "psychic," who claimed to bend metal with his
mind.
    The _Inside New Zealand_ documentary, funded by New Zealand On Air,
followed a woman and her sons to various sites in the North Island where they
described being sexually tortured and made to murder babies.  The woman's
parents, a Catholic priest and other residents were said to have been involved.
    The 53-year-old woman, who recovered the memories after psychotherapy,
claimed to have repeatedly been made pregnant in order to produce babies for
satanic murders and cannibalism.
    "If you believe her, animals were tortured, babies eaten and an evil time
had by all," said Skeptics spokesman Denis Dutton.
    "Satanic ritual abuse has been investigated by the FBI in the Unites States
and by a special government investigator in Britain.  Both of these inquiries
have shown allegations of satanic ritual abuse to be unfounded fantasies," he
said.
    "Yet TV3 presents these disturbed claims as though they were worth taking
seriously...(and) New Zealand On Air is squandering public money by supporting
such balderdash."
    Such claims also trivialized authentic cases of sexual abuse, he said.
    The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
(Skeptics) is a network of people dedicated to exposing pseudo-science and
bogus paranormal claims.