International Slow News Week
- Slashdot
- -- the origional story, dunno the guy who submitted it. Note the phrase "Laugh, it's funny"
- BBC News Online
- -- However, we couldn't resist going along with it when a BBC reporter rang up. Notice our 'clever' blag as to why the pictures show the power leads connected backwards.
- Annanova
- -- Other news sites ran the story.
- Discovery Channel Online
- -- Some, like the Discover Channel Online, we have sympathy for because they did an interview.
- applelinks.com
- Others just copied the BBC article and didn't ask questions.
- USA Today
- -- when USA Today newspaper ran this small article, it had gone Too Fartm
- NETWORK NEWS
- -- this ran on the Front Page of this UK techie weekly. 10000 Hits? they must have made that up... 30th June we went as low as 91688 hits in a day.
- fr.news.yahoo.com
- --Yahoo in French [English Translation]
- lanazione.monrif.net
- -- Something in Spanish(?) [English Translation]
- lenta.ru
- -- Aparently this is a major Russian news site. [English Translation]
- www.agestado.com.br
- www.barrapunto.com
- www.CyberSciences.com
- [English Translation]
- www.transfert.net
- [English Translation]
- notizie.virgilio.it
- [English Translation]
- www.newsboy.co.kr
- -- My favorite, although I don't have a clue what it says.
- terra.com.br
- [English Translation]
- www.sueddeutsche.de
- [English Translation]
- tecchannel.de
- [English Translation]
"breaking" the hoax
Eventually people started to twig. And we were feeling kinda guilty at this point.
- USA Today
- -- Approval for making the retraction good copy. And for keeping readers correctly (as possible) informed.
- The Register
- -- this article is amusing because it claims that slashdot 'fell for the hoax'. Which is untrue as they clearly marked it with the Monty Python foot. Wouldn't be so bad if they wern't slagging off other people for lack of research.
- PCPlus
- -- We are being Top Story!
- The Register (again)
- -- Credit to them for making more effort to get the facts.
- Ninfomania
- -- Another site to report on the 'hoax'- it was a joke, dammit!
- Church of Scotland Newsletter
- -- not the biggest of the publications, but it's a relief to see Christians with a sense of humour. Also it's probably the first and last Thelemic pun to appear in the Church of Scotland newsletter.
final only thought
Well, our apologies go to the reporters who we lied to. The BBC, USA Today, Discovery Channel. They are not so much to blame for this as all the other people who copied the stories without doing any actual research. Oh, and I suppose we're a bit to blame too.
<< Back to Spud