9: Easy to Fool the Media

One of our readings for this week was about Jimmy Kimmel's famous hoax videos (Poynter Article).

I found this article interesting for several reasons.  Of course, it's hilarious.  It's also amusing that media outlets might think the videos are real.

Chapter 6 in Elements tells us that journalists are supposed to be independent monitors of power. But who monitors journalists?  Obviously, Jimmy's videos are not created with the sole purpose of poking holes in what's supposed to be a discipline of verification, but it's a nice side effect.

I almost wish more people would attempt to fool the media so journalists had experience having to verify information rather than blindly retweeting it.

Hoaxes like this would be an excellent verification activity for schools of journalism.  When we're getting ready to write research papers in my English classes, I prime the students with a set of bellringers that contains real websites and hoax websites.  Activities like this in journalism schools might provide student journalists the healthy skepticism they're supposed to maintain.  By the time they become professional journalists, they'll know to question anything they see, hear, or read.