Newspapers - The Art of the Prank

As Nevada turns 150, columnist Barry Smith celebrates a tradition of Silver State media malarkey.

“Nevada Newspapers Couldn’t Resist a Good Hoax”
By Barry Smith
Reno Gazette-Journal
October 5, 2014

shapeimage_3 Nevada’s upcoming 150th birthday and National Newspaper Week make for a good opportunity to remind residents of one of this state’s seldom-celebrated contributions to journalism:

The hoax. The lie. Tall tales.

Mark Twain, of course, is our best-known example of a myth maker. But he’s not alone in the Nevada Newspaper Hall of Fame among Silver State journalists who didn’t let facts get in the way of a good story.

The pinnacle, as far as newspapers go, would be the Wabuska Mangler.

You may have passed through Wabuska on your way from Weeks to Weed Heights without realizing this tiny hamlet once had a feisty newspaper called the Mangler.

Well, it didn’t.

The Wabuska Mangler was entirely made up by Sam Davis, who was editor of The Morning Appeal in Carson City from 1879 to 1898, as a way to get outrageous opinions into the Appeal by attributing them to somebody else. Continue reading “The Wabuska Mangler: A Vintage Nevada Hoax”

Submitted by David Strom:

“Internet Explorer Users Have Lower IQs” Study Is a Hoax: Here Are Some of the Red Flags
by Tim Carmody
WIRED
August 3, 2011

If a headline sounds too good to be true, think twice.

A widely circulated research study claiming to show that Internet Explorer users have lower IQs has been outed as a hoax.

An outlet calling itself the “AptiQuant Psychometric Consulting Company” threw up a phony website a month ago, copied staff photos from a French site, and issued a press release [malware-free PDF] to reporters. Major newspapers, web sites and television stations from England to the US ran the story.

If they looked at the purported data at all, they didn”™t look at it very closely. This may have been a clever hoax, but it wasn”™t a careful one. Continue reading “Merchant Website Confesses to IE Hoax”