In 2004, just days before the presidential election, the CBS news with Dan Rather reported fake documents on President Bush’s National Guard service that fooled a national news organization but not a few bloggers in their pajamas.
One year and 2 weeks ago after the 2008 presidential election, the Fox News Channel was duped into reporting that an unnamed McCain campaign figure revealed that failed Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin did not know that Africa was a continent.
Good thing the media has learned to check its sources more thoroughly before airing these kinds of reports, right? lulz.
Fake “boy trapped in a runaway balloon” controversy fooled every single channel including the BBC.
Phony climate change press conference fools CNBC and Reuters.
Fake quotes of racism attributed to Rush Limbaugh fool NBC & CNN.
Now fake Obama thesis fools Limbaugh.
its a good time to be a hoax…
They work because they act on the principal of truthiness, or the idea that “I want it to be true, so I will choose to believe it IS true”. Dan Rather wanted President Bush to have a shady military record, Sarah Palin critics wanted her to be proved to be the yokel imbecile they assessed her as from day one, the world wanted a boy named Falcon to be in that balloon flying out of control through the sky, CNBC wanted to hear there would be a change in policy regarding climate change, NBC wanted Limbaugh to be exposed as a filthy racist and Limbaugh wanted Obama to be exposed as a Constitution hater.
Only CNBC and Limbaugh corrected these hoaxes on air within minutes of being fooled by them. All the rest let over 24 hours pass before telling the truth.