A retraction from AP: The Associated Press has withdrawn the 12th and 13th Ld-Writethrus of its story about the Natalie Wood investigation. The story quoted Christopher Walken telling Washington, D.C. sports talk radio station ESPN980 about his recollections from the night that Wood died. The station now says that it was a hoax involving a [...]
This was published Friday by the Evening Times of Glasgow: On Wednesday, October 5, the Evening Times published a report outlining the account of a woman s ordeal in court in which she claimed she had been raped. This story was subsequently highlighted in Holyrood at First Minister’s Questions. Regrettably the story was not subjected [...]
Pass notes No 3,020 was based on a story that suggested scientific research showed those who used Internet Explorer to complete an online quiz were less intelligent than others who completed the quiz. The story has since been shown to be a hoax. Unaided by the hoaxers, we also proved that we don’t know the [...]
In his Friday essay on 15 April 2011 (“The Arab Awakening – a long time coming”) Robert Fisk quoted from an order said to have been issued by the Saudi Minister of the Interior, HRH Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud on 11 March, in which he alleged that Prince Nayef ordered his security forces [...]
As has now been reported in many places, several media outlets last week fell for a hoax study that claimed users of Internet Explorer have a lower IQ than people who prefer other browsers. The BBC, which covered the fake news, published a report today revealing the hoax: The story was reported by many high [...]
A report from Stinky Journalism: … the BBC, Time magazine, the Telegraph and other news outlets published stories about a dog in Israel being condemned to stoning in Israel. As the BBC explained, the hoax story: “It was reported that the dog reminded a judge of a curse passed on a now deceased secular lawyer [...]
In a June 7 story, The Associated Press reported erroneously that a Syrian-American lesbian blogger who criticized the Syrian government on a website had been arrested in Damascus. Tom MacMaster, 40, an American graduate student in Scotland, announced June 12 at the website that he made up the persona, wrote the postings and that the [...]
Guardian articles about Amina Abdallah Araf al Omari, a blogger on the subject of Middle East unrest, carried photographs purporting to show the blog’s author. In fact, the person pictured was Jelena Lecic, who lives in the UK. We apologise to her. An account of how these pictures came to be used appears in today’s [...]
In a June 7 blog post and video clip, we reported a Dutch woman’s claim that she had her Facebook friends tattooed on her arm and showed video of the supposed tattoos. In fact, the story was an advertising stunt by a tattoo shop, and the tattoos weren’t real. Link Report an error
In an essay about popular unrest in the Arab world headed:A long time coming (15 April) we referred to an order said to have been given by HRH Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud on 11 March this year. We said that Prince Nayef, the Saudi minister of the interior, ordered security forces to show [...]
Business Insider broke the news today that the Associated Press was hoodwinked by a hoax press release claiming that GE had agreed to give its $3.8 billion 2010 tax refund to the U.S. government. From the fake release: GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt has informed the Obama administration that the company will be gifting its entire [...]
A new website promises to shine a spotlight on "churnalism" by exposing the extent to which news articles have been directly copied from press releases. The website, churnalism.com, created by charity the Media Standards Trust, allows readers to paste press releases into a "churn engine". It then compares the text with a constantly updated database [...]
Oopsies…our bad! On Wednesday, along with several other media outlets, UsMagazine.com erroneously published a story attributing quotes to Sarah Palin; in a supposed radio interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity, the former Republican Vice Presidential nominee was quoted bashing Christina Aguilera's botched rendition of the National Anthem at Sunday's Super Bowl. In response, Palin, 46, [...]
In yesterday’s Independent, Ian Herbert attributed quotes to the ITV football analyst Andy Townsend which suggested that he had made sexist comments on Twitter as part of the Andy Gray/Richard Keys story. Those quotes originated from a spoof Twitter account. We apologise for any embarrassment caused to Mr Townsend, who has no connection to the [...]
Pakistani newspapers have admitted they were hoaxed after publishing reports based on fake Wikileaks cables containing anti-Indian propaganda.US diplomatic cables were reported on Thursday as confirming many right-wing Pakistani views and conspiracy theories about their regional arch-foe. They claimed US envoys thought one Indian general was "rather a geek", and accused India of genocide in [...]
On May 24, 2010, we published an article headed "Sophie Dahl: I'm no weight watcher" containing personal comments that we said had been taken from Sophie Dahl's Twitter page. We now accept that Sophie Dahl does not have an active Twitter page and the comments were invented by hoaxers. The page has now been removed [...]
Jonathan Capehart is an editorial writer for the Washington Post, an MSNBC contributor and a seemingly smart, nice guy. If he is indeed a nice guy, he will probably have to just grin and bear it for a few days after a somewhat ill-conceived blog post made Monday night. In an entry in WaPo's "PostPartisan" [...]
An interviewee at St Paul's boys' school in London, who gave his name as Joe Bibby, was reported in a newspaper story and a guardian.co.uk video as saying he'd received five A* grades in this year's A-level exams. St Paul's has informed the Guardian that this person was a prankster, not a pupil (The grade [...]
On Oct. 29, we reported on the death of Chuck Biscuits, the former D.O.A. and Danzig drummer, which turned out to be a hoax. The B.C.-born drummer’s brother confirmed a day later that Biscuits, whose real name is Charles Montgomery, is healthy and living in Seattle. Link Related story here. Report an error
The Sun (U.K.) recently reported in a front page story that several famous Jews were being targeted by Muslim extremists. Then, on Tuesday, it published an article noting that it had fallen for a hoax: A PHONEY terrorism “expert” has confessed to duping newspapers and a senior politician. Glen Jenvey has admitted making up stories [...]
An excerpt of a very detailed account from Wired: All of Germany was bamboozled Thursday by a bizarre scheme that tricked the country’s main wire service into reporting an attempted suicide bombing in a California town — an attack supposedly perpetrated by a non-existent rap group called the “Berlin Boys.†The hoax has transfixed this [...]
An interview purporting to be with Banksy in last Saturday’s Guide (One last thing . . . , 18 July, page 98, the Guide) was, it transpires, conducted with someone impersonating the graffiti artist. We apologise to Banksy for this error and for any offence and inconvenience caused. Link Thanks, Daniel! Report an error
Romenesko spotted a story in the Ahwatukee Foothills News that details how the paper fell for a rather elaborate hoax. Using his mother and what appears to be at least one accomplice to add credibility, 21 year-old Vinayak Gorur convinced the paper that he was a chef on the rise. From the paper’s account: …wow, [...]
A short item in a football roundup hinted at a £2m move to Middlesbrough for Serbian striker Rajko Purovic (Transfer talk, 11 June, page 4). This story was based on a web hoax. For reasons we have been unable to divine, it appeared in the paper under the byline of a reporter who was on [...]
A report from the Guardian: The editor-in-chief of an academic journal has resigned after his publication accepted a hoax article. The Open Information Science Journal failed to spot that the incomprehensible computer-generated paper was a fake. This was despite heavy hints from its authors, who claimed they were from the Centre for Research in Applied [...]
