Media-Hoax
3 entries
- 1926-1992 Jul 2026 The Panic Broadcast: Who Really Panicked in 1938 Everyone knows Orson Welles's War of the Worlds broadcast sent America running into the streets. Almost none of it happened that way. The real hoax wasn't the Martians — it was the newspapers, who had a motive to make radio look dangerous, inventing a panic that mostly wasn't there.
- 1959-2018 Jun 2026 Alan Abel (1924-2018): America's Professional Hoaxer For over fifty years, Alan Abel fooled CBS, NBC, and the New York Times -- repeatedly. He faked his own obituary in the Times. When he actually died in 2018, they had to triple-check.
- 1966-present Jun 2026 Joey Skaggs: America's Longest-Running Media Hoaxer For sixty years, Joey Skaggs has been fooling the American media with hoaxes so absurd they should be obviously fake. A dog brothel got an Emmy nomination. Cockroach pills went on the UPI wire. The media never learns.
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