Guardian Unlimited | World Latest | Fake News Abounds, but Vigilance on Rise — Blogs seem to be both part of the problem and part of the solution!
NEW YORK (AP) – With its official-looking BBC News banner, the Web site looked real enough, but the sick tale it told seemed too preposterous to be true.
“Lion Mutilates 42 Midgets in Cambodian Ring-Fight,” blared the headline. An article followed about a circus-like spectacle that went awry and resulted in many deaths.
The page was a hoax, but it exploded across the Internet. Soon it was being repeated by bloggers, radio show hosts and a few newspapers. The New York Post published the yarn in its “Weird but True” column on May 20.
The episode was another in a string of fabrications and manipulations that may be causing people to think twice about what they read, hear or see on TV.
In recent weeks, Sony Pictures Entertainment agreed to pay $1.5 million to movie patrons duped by advertisements that contained fabricated quotes from a fictitious film critic.
Two reporters at a small newspaper in North Carolina, the Reidsville Review, resigned after a competitor reported that they had made up quotes for a man-on-the-street opinion feature.
via D. Drews
related link:
The Classic
sounds more like a lack of fact checking by the media. Didn`t something similar happen with a story ?
John,
I guess you can make money with fake news. A lot of people seem to be into producing it. I haven’t figured out how. Then there are the fake ads, that nobody is producing, that just seem to keep growing. Have nice (real) weekend. The fake new will be on Saturday night along with the real ads.
My favorite this past week:
Experts Warn About Powdered Alcohol
http://digg.com/science/Experts_Warn_About_Powdered_Alcohol
It’s even been on the latest edition of podcast Diggnation…
The episode was another in a string of fabrications and manipulations that may be causing people to think twice about what they read, hear or see on TV
Hah hah hah hah hah !
That was a good giggle, you know until I read that article I thought everything I saw in the media was the unvarnished, unbiased truth
So where are those WMD’s again ?
Our local paper in Port Huron, MI makes up quotes as well. Is it really a big deal? Why does the four opinions of the street people matter anyway?
What happened to the old adage “Trust no one?”
It’s a hi-tech game of telephone and people are dumb enough to fall for everything they read and what’s worse, dumb enough to not check their facts.