I Smell A Rat, Harmless and Quixotic

    Every major and minor media outlet has picked up on the story, which makes such a nice human-interest end  to a broadcast.  A man lost his wallet, and some of the contents have been returned via the U..S. Mail.  The victim goes to the media to report that he received a letter from the finder, with his driver's license, credit cards and other stuff, along with a written explanation detailing why he returned some items and kept others.  He needed the cash (amount is unspecified) to buy weed, the Metro Card because fares have gone up, and the wallet itself because it was "kinda cool."
    If I were an investigative reporter, I would question the validity of the entire story.  The letter writer has better-than-average mastery of the English language, though a few punctuation marks have been omitted.  He takes the time to explain his reasoning for retaining some of the property, for reasons best assigned to one of the hipster genre.  He returns credit cards, which any thinking person  would know have been cancelled.  So evidently the only item of value is the driver's license. He is not an honest person; he kept all the property that he could use.  So why would he go to the trouble to write an explanatory note and pay the postal fees to send it?   And, most telling of all, why would he explain that he knew where to mail it because he saw the  owner's address on the driver's license.  That should have been obvious to the owner of the wallet, but it does clear up all the questions that might arise when the story airs.
    It's an amusing anecdote.  No reporter is going to be sent to check it out.  We are all suckers for this type of story.  But I see very gullible forces of the mass media all too eager  to dish out such pap to a receptive audience. If we hear it on TV or read it on the internet, it must be true.  Just ask BaBabooey.