An Oxfam campaign stunt prior to the start of the G8 Rally in Rostock on June 2, 2007 in which the G8 leaders gamble away Africa’s future.
The network TV show that pranked the other networks [English & Spanish]
Submitted by Raul Minchinela:
A Spanish TV channel created a prank and openly showed that biased, unchecked, fill-the-void information is the common currency for Spain’s broadcast networks. This is a veritable course on media pranking — creating and perpetrating a hoax, then documenting it and analyzing what happened on TV. And it has inspired more of the same. The prank as media commentary has taken the media. Welcome to Spain.
The goal of media pranks is to show how information is manipulated by leaking false news into newscasts that is more revealing than the actual truth. In creating a news story that should exist, we see that the media do not listen to reality, but rather expect specific things to happen according to a pre-determined structure. Anything that does not fit that mold is simply not heard and, consequently, not shown on TV.
The second phase of a media prank invites, and expects, media outlets to confess that the leaked prank is in fact false news — that they broadcasted the material not because it was real, but because it “fit” what was expected.
With that in mind, the perfect horizon in the “media prank world” would be an actual TV show that created unbiased media pranks. Their rival channels would fall for them, and then the TV show would create an hour-long special about how every top-watched program broadcasted false news, asking them to publicly admit that it was all a prank. In that perfect world, that portion of the show providing commentary about the TV’s biased perspective of the world, including the lies and the unchecked information and the sensationalist let-the-s**t-hit-the-fan attitude, would be presented by a comedian with a sharp-tongue.
Guess what? This happened in Spain on May 11, 2007. All of it. Continue reading “The network TV show that pranked the other networks [English & Spanish]”
Engadget takes a bite out of Apple
From Yahoo! Tech:
Bloggers Taken for a Ride in a $4 Billion Hoax
May 16, 2007
- It sounded like a juicy scoop for a Wednesday morning. Engadget, arguably the world’s most widely-read technology blog, got wind of an internal memo sent to Apple employees: the iPhone would be delayed for four months, and the Leopard operating system pushed into 2008. In the breathless world of Mac fanboydom, that’s news to send readers into a full-tilt tizzy.
The only problem: It wasn’t true. The email was a hoax, spoofed to look like it came from Apple’s servers (whether or not it did is still under investigation).
Tech Crunch notes that the subsequent panic, which was over inside half an hour, knocked $4 billion off of Apple’s market cap, however briefly. At its nadir, the stock was down over $4, about 3 percent. People who sold on the way down lost money… and those who bought made a pretty penny. Continue reading “Engadget takes a bite out of Apple”
JIFFI STOP – Pranking the Michigan Motorist
Submitted by Henry Emsixle
MDOT Depotty Director of Transanitation
The Grand Rapids Alliance of MICHief in MICHigan is pleased to announce its latest contribution to our “single supremely tangible freedom”, the PRANK!
Public Roadside Urination (PRU) a problem in your neighborhood? According to a recent government study conducted by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI), Public Roadside Urination is on the rise and has fast become a national epidemic, a national dilemma requiring a radical solution. The main contributing factor is there are simply not enough public toilets to support the population.
After the 4 year study, UMTRI recommended to the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) a revolutionary new concept in transanitation called JIFFI, an acronym for Jons Installed at Fast Freeway Intersections. JIFFI is a radical innovation born in Michigan that delivers value and performance on a variety of levels: cost, space, speed and utility. MDOT immediately embraced the JIFFI concept, quickly secured Federal funds and matching grant funds, designed and built the nation’s very first JIFFI STOP in just under 6 months.
Continue reading “JIFFI STOP – Pranking the Michigan Motorist”
Fox News and the Ham Sandwich
Thank you David Strom for sending us this story about Fox News falling for a parody of a news story about a ham sandwich incident in a middle school in Maine.
From Think Progress:
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…The backstory: Last week in the town of Lewiston, Maine, a group of Somalian Muslim middle school students were the subject of a cruel prank when their peers placed a ham steak next to them in order to personally offend the students. School officials filed a report because the students considered the act to be a hate/bias crime.
This actual story was then spoofed by a parody site called Associated Content, which made up quotes and details, such as the school”™s intention to “create an anti-ham “˜response plan.”™”…
Fox & Friends subsequently picked up the spoof story and reported it as news, or should we say, mocked what they thought was the news. Here’s the video: