5 Clearly Fake News Stories The Media Told You Were True

So how in the hell could reporters in one of the world's largest media markets be that hilariously wrong about a story that big? After all, it's not like it's that hard to find out what features will and won't be available on one of the biggest product launches of all time.

Well, it has to do with the fact that even though it's a New York media outlet, it's still a local news station, and they tend to suck at covering local news with any depth due to cuts in newsroom staff. So when a local news broadcast wants to do an easy story on the people lining up for the new phone, they probably just have an intern Google "iPhone 5" and grab the first clip they see. Quickly throw a sentence into the reporter's narration about what the video is showing, and bam! You've set the stage for some very confused and angry Genius Bar visits.

Jeff Pachoud / Stringer / Getty
"Right now it's just us at this desk. If you don't want your shattered scrotum joining in, give me the holophone."

The Story

One way to slip a bullshit story into the mainstream is if it seems to fit a narrative we've already heard, such as how birth rates are falling in Western nations (often with the subtext that those evil Muslims will outbreed us).

John Moore/Getty Images News/Getty Images/Stockbyte
"What do you mean our charity is racist?"

So it made sense when, in the early 2000s, a bunch of news outlets started reporting on a study conducted by the World Health Organization that suggested that blond hair wasn't going to exist in the human population after 200 years. The reason had something to do with blond hair being a recessive gene that is being slowly usurped by the other hair colors. Due to this hostile genetic takeover, the last natural blond would be born in Finland sometime over the next two centuries. This would presumably be followed by a thousand years of darkness.

The original story was likely this BBC article, but it soon spread to ABC, CNN, and The Daily Mail.

PhotoObjects.net/PhotoObjects.net/Getty Images
Otherwise known as "the herpes of journalism."

But Really ...

Anyone who wanted to find more information about this scientific study would have a difficult time of it, because none of the articles that reported on it ever linked to the study or even named any of the "German scientists" who conducted it. On top of this, nobody gives any of those important science details like numbers, percentages, or statistics. Also, the World Health Organization, which supposedly conducted the study, had never heard of it, so there's that.

Jupiterimages/Comstock/Getty Images
"Yeah, you guys know Ebola's a thing, right?"

In fact, nobody knows where this story came from. It can only be traced back to all these news sites suddenly reporting on it, as though the story somehow wrote itself in a spontaneous regurgitation of bad journalism. Genetics doesn't even work the way that the study supposedly describes, so blonds aren't actually going anywhere.

The "disappearing blond gene" affair just became an embarrassing example of how news agencies, in the scramble to report a story the moment they hear about it, just copy-paste each other's bullshit without so much as giving us the courtesy of a quick Google search to see if the events they're reporting on actually happened.

Visage/Stockbyte/Getty Images
"Words are all the proof I need."

But hey, at least it doesn't look like they got it from a parody news site. Unlike ...

So, in late 2012, the Iranian news agency FARS excitedly reported on the results of a Gallup poll that revealed that the majority of rural white Americans would, if given the opportunity, vote for Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over Barack Obama.

The reasons cited were that Ahmadinejad would "never let some gay protesters tell him how to run his country like Obama does" and that they respected the Iranian president because he didn't hide the fact that he was a Muslim.

Spencer Platt/Getty Images News/Getty Images
"He's as crazy as I think the other guy is."

And that report apparently signaled the beginning of an American trend of fondness toward foreign dictators. Shortly afterward, The People's Daily, a Communist Party newspaper in China, ran a 55-page photo spread of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, proclaiming him the sexiest man alive. They cited an American news report for the story and quoted some rather flattering passages, such as "Blessed with an air of power that masks an unmistakable cute, cuddly side, Kim made this newspaper's editorial board swoon with his impeccable fashion sense, chic short hairstyle, and, of course, that famous smile."

But Really ...

Some of you already recognize that the American source both of these news agencies quoted while rushing to get on top of these incredible scoops was The Onion. For those of you most loyal to Cracked for your Internet comedy needs, you may not be aware that The Onion is the publication that basically defines the "fake newspaper" concept. But despite their cartoonishly outrageous headlines, regular people do get duped by it all the time. Sometimes, those people happen to write for major news organizations.

FARS News Agency
"Hey, we're just Iran. No one expects fact checking."

Once the comedy outfit received word about the error, The Onion's editor, Will Tracy, released a statement commending FARS' outstanding reportage and claiming that they had been working closely with the Middle Eastern bureau for years.

So for instance, the rise of the "99 Percent" movement brought about a lot of public rage toward Wall Street bankers and the rich in general, and the media was quick to fall all over any story that revealed the wealthy to be the scheming, Snidely Whiplash-esque villains the public had cast them as. So when an affluent banker with money to burn racked up a huge bill at a local restaurant and decided to embrace his douchebag reputation by leaving a 1 percent tip -- and to scrawl "GET A REAL JOB" on the receipt -- the Huffington Post jumped at the chance to fire up the Occupy movement's base. They ran the story without verifying it, with the only evidence being an anonymous photo posted on the Internet. After all, how could such a thing be faked?

futureexbanker via Huffington Post
That sort of technology won't exist until years ago.

But Really ...

It was left up to the restaurant at the heart of the scandal, True Food Kitchen at Newport Beach in California, to do the research that journalists didn't bother to do. They dug up the actual receipt that was pictured in the article and found that it had been Photoshopped, not only to alter the tip and add the snide remark, but to add an extra hundred bucks to the bill (which had actually only come to $33.54).

Then there's the fact that the whistle-blower (who turned out to have no whistle to blow) mysteriously shut down his WordPress blog and vanished when the digitally altered bill started getting traction in the mainstream news. It shouldn't have been that difficult to contact the restaurant and follow up, especially since the server who took the order is named right there on the bill. Then again, conspiracy theorists would probably say that the obvious forgery was planted in the media by Wall Street bigwigs who wanted to make themselves look better.

Burke/Triolo Productions/Brand X
"$33.54 is what I spend on a cup of coffee."

The Stories

Readers tend to love stories that portray foreigners as so primitive and backward that they have a child's understanding of sex. These stories go viral on the Internet all the time -- you'll go to Fark.com and see a story about a pastor in Brazil who convinced his congregation that his sperm was sacred, and it will spread to thousands of sites before somebody finally tracks down the Spanish-language parody site it originated from. But that's the Internet -- you'd think actual news outlets would have a slightly better bullshit filter. But not even they can turn their back on a good "LOL naive foreigners!" story.

Christopher Furlong/Getty Images News/Getty Images
"Guys, we have Internet access. We aren't fucking cavemen."

For instance, The Daily Record reported in 2009 that a man in India was suing the makers of Axe Body Spray after he failed to attract swimsuit models who would carry pitchers of beer to his apartment (as Axe's advertising seemed to promise). Silly foreign people! Why don't they understand hyperbole?

But these stories are even better when they involve Muslims, like when the Fox News show Fox Nation reported that Pakistan's Islamic clerics had put a fatwa on women wearing padded bras, labeling them "the devil's cushions." According to the story, the nation's Council of Islamic Ideology claimed that the colorful appearance and sensuous purpose of these bust enhancers ran contrary to the prudish, sex-hating nature of Islamic faith.

Goodshoot RF/Goodshoot/Getty Images
"This must be breaking some law."

But Really ...

As for the Axe lawsuit, according to some responsible reporters who actually tried to find a source for this story, India's judicial system doesn't seem to have any such case on its books. Media reporter Tommy Christopher went straight to the Axe company and managed to find a spokesperson, fighting for air from underneath a pile of half-naked beach volleyball players, who said that they traced the story back to a parody news site.

So which website was clever enough to fabricate a story that could fool The Daily Record? Was it those tricky folks at The Onion again? Actually, it was this article from FakingNews.com. That's right: It has "fake" right there in the title. They couldn't really do more to prevent this kind of thing unless a hand actually came out of the monitor to slap anyone with journalism credentials who visits the site and hits CTRL + C.

Jupiterimages/Comstock/Photos.com/Getty Images
"Oh yeah, this is a rock-solid source."

And the padded bra fatwa? Well, there's something oddly entertaining about the original article that Fox used as its source for this story. Particularly the part where one protester is quoted as saying, "I will not wear these sinful, men-attracting padded bras that make my jugs look juicy," before ripping her bra out and stomping on it in front of a crowd of cheering supporters.

That's because RoznamaJawani.com is, yes, a comedy news spoof that also runs headlines like "Area Man Prefers Time When It's Raining Normally to Time When It's Raining Men." Then there's the photo taken of the supposed conference that you don't exactly need to be a graphic arts student to see has been digitally altered:

Roznama Jawani
Witchcraft!

Even if you forgive them for this oversight, we're still left with the depressing notion that Fox Nation's fact checkers stumble across a site like this and merely think, "Wow, foreign nations really are hilariously bizarre and terrifyingly stupid!"

When not staring dreamily at pictures of Kim Jong Un, Kier frequents the Twitter.

For more big dumb idiots in mainstream media, check out 7 Clearly Fake News Stories That Fooled The Mainstream Media and 5 More Clearly Fake News Stories That Fooled the Media.

If you're pressed for time and just looking for a quick fix, then check out The 4 Most Baffling Career-Themed Barbie Dolls.

And stop by LinkSTORM to discover which columnist fooled Anderson Cooper into interviewing him..

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