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November 14, 2008

That funny fake news thing…

I am not nor will I ever be a great news writer. Or even a news writer. Or a writer. Basically, I’m inept with the English language. When I posted about the fake NYTimes site earlier this week, I only showed you one part of the entire paper, and just a fake ad at that.

I was really impressed the coordination of the fake NYTimes prank. Within hours, a highly organized action took place, most participants only knowing very little about the project. All but a handful of people just knew that they were going to participate in something large on Wednesday. That’s it. Not that it was a parody, not that they needed to be here or there. They were just supposed to read their email or check their phone for a txt and be available for “something.” Instructions came down and bodies appeared magically to hand out papers, document the process and post the results. Like, whoa.

There was lots of news.
NYTimes
Gawker.
NBC
UK Guardian
Newsday
NY Daily News
Reuters
CBS
Huffington Post
Village Voice
Forbes
BBC

Here’s a video.

New York Times Special Edition Video News Release – Nov. 12, 2008 from H Schweppes on Vimeo.

There were more videos through the day.

Iraq War Ends! from jamiew on Vimeo.

Good News! from Blake Whitman on Vimeo.
All of this happened on one day, with one huge effort.  I’m still boggled. America’s Diplomat, a pretty nice site idea is in the background of the prank. I think it’s worth mentioning here now too.

Update: Andy Bichlbaum and Steve Lambert take credit for the prank:

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