| Someone called Godfrey Elfwick claimed to have written the Guardian article as a spoof, although on closer investigation it seems there's no solid proof. That said, it reads like perfect satire, I can't believe it's genuine. I recall a few similar instances over the years but I can't find links to all of them. Not sure if I can find an exact fit for an anonymous story made up to smear someone. The accusations of child-rape against Trump just before the election spring to mind: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/07/donald-trump... More generally on fake accounts, there was the fake Syrian lesbian blogger: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-13760208 There was the fake deaf cerebral palsy blogger: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/dave-on-wheels There was this "meeting a troll" story from years ago which I always suspected was fake - looked it up just now, and while there's no hard evidence that it is fake, the writer (who made no claims to using a pseudonym), has since vanished from the face of the web, and it seems no journalists ever fact checked the story: http://paulclarke.com/honestlyreal/2012/10/for-whom-the-bell... My google search turned up this article from Breitbart which is actually pretty good, a rundown of fake stories that became national news over the years: http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2016/11/22/12-fake-n... Their comment on the infamous Stephen Glass I think gets to the heart of how fake articles get written: Some speculated Glass fooled so many editors because he had “wonder boy” star power and great personal charisma. Others thought it was because he understood and flattered the biases and expectations of the publications he worked for – he sold them stories they wanted to publish, surfing the early wave of “narrative” obsession that has completely consumed mainstream journalism over the past two decades. Glass invented people, organizations, and events that lived down to his publishers’ darkest expectations of every social group and profession except their own. |