From Jesse Brown, host of Canadaland Podcast:
The greatest media prankster alive talks to Jesse for our April Fools episode.
Alan Abel, RIP
Better check the coffin!
Alan Abel, Hoaxer Extraordinaire, Is (on Good Authority) Dead at 94
by Margalit Fox
The New York Times
Sept. 17, 2018
Alan Abel, a professional hoaxer who for more than half a century gleefully hoodwinked the American public — not least of all by making himself the subject of an earnest news obituary in The New York Times in 1980 — apparently actually did die, on Friday, at his home in Southbury, Conn. He was 94.
His daughter, Jenny Abel, said the cause was complications of cancer and heart failure.
Mr. Abel’s putative 1980 death, orchestrated with his characteristic military precision and involving a dozen accomplices, had been confirmed to The Times by several rigorously rehearsed confederates. One masqueraded as the grieving widow. Another posed as an undertaker, answering fact-checking calls from the newspaper on a dedicated phone line that Mr. Abel had installed, complete with its own directory-information business listing.
After the obituary was published, Mr. Abel, symbolically rising from the grave, held a gleeful news conference, and a much-abashed Times ran a retraction.
This time around, Mr. Abel’s death was additionally confirmed by the Regional Hospice and Palliative Care in Connecticut, which said it had tended to him in his last days, and Carpino Funeral Home in Southbury, which said it was overseeing the arrangements.
Watch the Movie the Mainstream Media Does Not Want You To See!
ART OF THE PRANK (the movie)
is now available for
Community Screenings
and on
VOD on iTunes, Amazon and more!
READ THE PRESS RELEASE HERE:
The Movie the Mainstream Media Does Not Want Anyone to See
Relight Films releases “Art of the Prank,”
an expose of the weaknesses of the news media.
Art of the Prank Movie is About to Launch!
We’re excited!
Art of the Prank, the feature documentary film about the life and work of artist Joey Skaggs, produced and directed by Andrea Marini and co-produced by Judy Drosd, is nearing completion. Filmed in New York, London, Hawaii, Los Angeles, Kentucky & Tennessee, the movie, a story of true will and determination, follows Joey as he attempts to pull off the most challenging media hoax of his career.
The movie website is now live at http://artoftheprank-themovie.com.
The Facebook and Twitter pages are respectively at:
http://www.facebook.com/artoftheprankthemovie
http://twitter.com/aotp_themovie
The plan is to submit the film to film festivals around the world and to begin showing it widely. We”re open to all forms of distribution so please share any ideas you have with us. You are very important to the success of this film. The more that our friends and colleagues spread the word, the more opportunities we”ll have to grow an audience. We”d love to have as many people see the film as possible.
There will be more news soon about some exciting screenings this Fall.
“Measles Parties” Hoax Infects the Media
Measles Parties, Moral Panics and Folk Devils… Oh My!
by Edward Coll
February 10, 2015
In the market for eyeballs, mass media seldom misses an opportunity to misinform the public and create controversy by ginning up a climate of fear by fabricating folk devils and a moral panic amidst a crisis.
The Disneyland measles outbreak provides the most recent example.
Media outlets from Fox to NPR spread a rumor that the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) issued a bulletin advising parents not to take children to “measles parties” to intentionally infect their children. Supposedly, these parties are being thrown by anti-vaxers to give their children “natural immunity.”
No such bulletin was ever issued by the CDPH and according to the respected debunking site Snopes.com here is what really happened:
“… a California health official explained to us that before the rumor circulated, a news outlet called to inquire whether the department had received any reports about measles parties. When a representative stated no such reports had been received, the reporter asked about the agency’s position on measles parties and was (predictably) told public health officials advised against them.”
This CPDH response to these nonexistent measles parties was morphed into a “bulletin” giving credibility to a false rumor created and spread by the media outlets themselves. Time, Salon, ABC News, LA Times, and Washington Post, to name just some, are all still actively spreading the rumor. None have retracted the story yet.
Perhaps the broadcast outlets intentional spreading of this false rumor shows the scant regard they hold for their public interest obligations.
image: Salon (Yuganov Konstantin via Shutterstock)