MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin. As FBI and Homeland Security officials confirmed that an internet story claiming "dirty bombs" would be exploded at U.S. football stadiums this Sunday was a hoax, writers of fake news content rallied around its author, "javness", a 20-year old Milwaukee man.
"He didn't do anything I wouldn't have done," said David Carrington, a software programmer who writes for FakeNews.com, "except I would have posted it in 'Sports' instead of 'US News'."
The Oakland Raiders
The story claimed that Osama bin Laden had plotted to explode radiological bombs in National Football League stadiums in New York, Miami, Atlanta, Seattle, Houston, Cleveland and Oakland this Sunday. "Oakland was the tip we needed to determine the story was false," said Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff. "Why would anybody care about the Raiders?" he said with a laugh. The Oakland Raiders are 0-5 and Las Vegas oddsmakers have made them 500-1 long shots to win the Super Bowl.
Chertoff: "Arizona +3 against the Raiders? Take the points."
The bomb story was posted on The Friend Society, a satirical web site, as part of a "writing duel" between javness and a Brownsville, Texas man to see who could write the scarier story. "It was stupid," said Alan Alpert, a free-lance writer whose work appears on fictiontimes.com, "but without stupidity, the on-line spoof industry would shut down tomorrow."
Quaker Oats, fertility drug.
The Friend Society is unrelated to the Society of Friends or "Quakers", a Philadelphia-based religious cult whose members believe that human reproduction is caused by oatmeal.
"You're sure the documents are real, right?"
Other "spoof" websites said they would take steps to insure that their content complies with accepted journalistic standards. "The dirty bomb story generated 100,000 unique views, and that means ad revenue," said UnfitToPrint.com's Ed Mihalik. "How do I get in touch with this 'javness' guy?--he's another Dan Rather."
Copyright 2006, Con Chapman
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