Saturday, April 4, 2009

April Fool Funeral

According to Improv Everywhere's, April Fool Funeral article, New York's CW local news affiliate saw Improv Everywhere's "Best Funeral Ever" prank and reported it as fact:  

"If you haven’t figured it out by now, 'The Best Funeral Ever' mission was staged for April Fool’s Day. The 'family members' were all actors and friends of Improv Everywhere. Next week we will post a new report with photo and video outtakes from the day. We staged a few over-the-top moments that were just too ridiculous to keep the video believable. Our apologizes to those who were fooled into thinking we had lost our minds and done something this horrendous. If you haven’t read the comments yet, do yourself a favor and read a few. They are probably funnier than the hoax itself.
...

So basically the extent of [CW's] reporting is watching a video on YouTube and then describing it as fact on air. They didn’t bother to email Improv Everywhere for comment, call the cemetery to verify, or try to get a quote from the 'family.' They just watched the video and threw it on TV. Great journalism!"

 

Clearly, in terms of reputation as a news source, both the CW and Improv Everywhere fall somewhere between The National Enquirer and Weekly World News. So I hope this isn't the world's most meta/protracted April Fool's joke ever.  I mean, I'm not fact checking this either. And I'm just posting it. *Fingers crossed* 


Mental note: get fact-checking department. Enjoy!

(From Buzzfeed)

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