The National Report has released another highly disturbing story out of Louisiana where Paul Horner, 15, allegedly was given 25 years to life for “swatting” — calling in a face police report on an online gaming opponent. The problem is that the story is entirely untrue. There is nothing funny of course about the article like an Onion publication. National Report, which we have previously discussed, is a fake new site in which grown adults do nothing but try to trick blogs and news sites into republishing false stories. That is it. Just a juvenile “gotcha” site that is the equivalent to journalistic graffiti. Now, once again, here is my question: why do advertisers support this site and why hasn’t someone sued these people? The latest fake story shows the picture of a person crying in a courtroom surrounding by officers. The editors list the photo as an Associated Press photo and the website appears to have removed its prior disclaimer that the stories are false.
The story recounts how Horner broke down in tears after the judge sentenced him to twenty-five years to life in federal prison in the first swatting prosecution. The article goes into depth about the facts and allegations, including the gamer tags of the parties and the decision to charge Horner as an adult. It even quotes Judge Arthur Digsby warning others to leave “your petty pride in the realm of digital fantasy where it is still safe. Because, as young mister Horner has learned, actions in the real world don’t have a reset button. And every parent should make sure their children understand that.”
The picture has the following caption: “15-year-old Paul Horner reacting to a judges ruling which sentenced the young man to 25 years in prison on multiple domestic terrorism charges. (AP Photo/Dennis System, File) / AP ” The question is who is being shown in the picture and whether that person can now sue. This is not a news story protected under common law rules for newsworthy publications. It is not news at all. Moreover, the article implicates (falsely) Associated Press in a false story.
What the editors accomplish in such stories is little more than a journalistic version of tripping someone on the stairs from behind and then laughing.
There was a disclaimer on the site that could be easily missed and equally easily misunderstood:
DISCLAIMER: The National Report is an online portal for “citizen journalists.” The views expressed by writers on this site are theirs alone and are not reflective of the fine journalistic and editorial integrity of National Report. Advice given is NOT to be construed as professional. If you are in need of professional help, please consult a professional. National Report is not intended for children under the age of 18.
However, I could not find that disclaimer this time.
The website lists editors like Allen Montgomery. In one report, National Report Publisher Allen Montgomery is quoted in saying that “We have been targeting Tea Party types recently as they are the most gullible and are willing to spread misinformation across the internet with little/no research.” Now there is a worthy purpose in life: finding ways to spread misinformation on issues that deeply affect people’s lives from free speech to homosexual rights to the environment. Other people are trying to deal with a global attack on free speech, but the people at National Report are trying to re-direct that debate into false alleys and walls.
I was drawn to the story initially for our site, which has long discussed the problem of runaway sentencing laws and abusive prosecutions. Those are serious questions that some of us try hard to raise in the hope of reform or at least greater awareness in the public. We are hindered by the work of outfits like National Report. While people try to make serious contributions to this world, the juveniles at these sites simply try to trick people and misdirect news. The stories tend to work to the advantage of those who engage in such abuses when people waste time and effort on a false story (which is then proclaimed as merely made up). The disclosure of the hoax makes it more difficult to get people to rally or respond to real abuses. For the life of me, I cannot imagine why adults want to spend their time trying to victimize people who feel strongly about public issues and act on those feelings. While most people have disconnected from public debate, the National Report staff targets those who want to actively debate the issues and raise awareness of threats. It is like putting beacons on a shore to try to get ships to crash or spreading a rumor at a high school that a classmate was killed in a car accident. It is purely malicious and craven conduct. However, the people at National Report were able to find others who enjoy this type of malevolent fun.
The most mystifying aspects of this work however is the absence of any litigation. Here the National Report is showing an actual person and claiming that he is a boy sentenced for terroristic threats. The photo appears real and is linked to a legitimate news organization. Putting aside the man in the picture and Associate Press as potentially injured parties, there is the question of the Internet suppliers. The problem is that the protection for Internet companies under federal law is so extensive that there is now no incentive to act on such false sites despite the damage that they do to legitimate news and political speech on the web. It is ironic. One wayward photo can lead to the banning of a site for copyright violations but an entire site that is committed to tricking people and creating false stories is perfectly alright. The absence of a clear disclaimer should be a material problem for any such site, but National Report appears to be operating with impunity on such issues.
The latest hoax has snared a couple of sites, but hopefully the early disclosure of the hoax on this and other sites will reduce the damage of the National Report and its editors. However, it is very easy to fall victim to these false stories and the editors and writers of the National Report will likely be able to claim additional victims in the next round of hoaxes.
If anyone is suing National Report and its editors, we would be very interested in following such a lawsuit and reporting on its progress.
“We have been targeting Tea Party types recently as they are the most gullible and are willing to spread misinformation across the internet with little/no research.”
I don’t know if those who have sent me emails, etc. are Tea Party “types” but those who get their news by watching FOX or listening to Rush 24/7 certainly are gullible. They pass on the darnedest stuff without checking. For awhile I did the research that showed the misinformation. I don’t know if it was the cognitive dissonance or just that I disagreed with them but I don’t get their stuff anymore. 🙂
“The picture has the following caption: “15-year-old Paul Horner reacting to a judges ruling which sentenced the young man to 25 years in prison on multiple domestic terrorism charges. (AP Photo/Dennis System, File) / AP ” The question is who is being shown in the picture and whether that person can now sue.”
Do we even know that that’s an actual AP photo? I don’t remember seeing one labeled “Dennis System” before. The only “Dennis System” I’m aware of is this:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=D.E.N.N.I.S%20System
The picture could have only models.
It’s a plausible, well-told lie. It’s a con job that provides us the checklist indicators we’re trained to look for as on-line consumers. It’s less tripping someone on the stairs from behind than inducing someone to fall by convincing his pattern recognition that there is a staircase where one doesn’t actually exist.
The Montgomery quote highlights the vulnerability of narrative. He points out the Tea Party, but it’s not a one-sided partisan vulnerability. It’s human. To wit, the instance of the phenomenon I’ve engaged with the most here is the prevalent false narrative against Operation Iraqi Freedom. Primary sources easily accessed on-line clearly show the Iraq enforcement was right on the law and justified on the policy, yet many intelligent, educated people who should know better were successfully conned, anyway, by the false narrative that OIF was “based on lies” and illegal/unConstitutional. The hold of narrative is powerful enough so that some people have even stubbornly insisted on the false narrative against OIF even after the truth has been exposed to them with the primary sources.
And I should add to my post of 11:35am, the right wing (i.e., the latest iteration of the Republican Party) is superior in the skills of political insurgency and propaganda (in other words, lying). And before you counter me, Obama is not a Democrat or a believer in democracy any more than the right wing and the Democratic Party is corrupt as well as the Republican Party. It nonetheless attempts to do a tiny bit for the nonrich, however flawed their results (using a terrible Republican health plan to push through the ACA, for example). And both parties have routinely lied about the aims and activities constituting foreign policy, which are not based on reasons of humanitarian intervention, democracy, or civil rights but are based solely on making the world “safe” for the most predatory American style capitalism, the dollar, and American multinational corporations. Political chaos and devastation of peoples and environments are the inevitable result.
Theo, You’re absolutely correct, Fox needs to take its cue from MSNBC and hire august people like Al Sharpton. Maybe Fox can hire Keith Olbermann, It is the right thing to do to hire the mentally ill.
http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/barackobama/ss/Doj-and-Fbi-Raid-News-Media-Offices.htm
National Report USED TO have a disclaimer page stating it was satire. That page has been removed. Does this publication hope to reel in those who wish to believe these sorts of stories, especially when it pertains to political issues?
Well, these people got me a few days ago. I was sooo mad about what had supposedly happened that I almost sent it to Prof. Turley. Luckily I found out it was a hoax when trying to find out more . It was on another website, but here is where it came back to :
http://nationalreport.net/nyc-police-officer-kills-baby-breastfeeding-argument/
I have to give the author kudos for his /her skill in crafting this story because it sounded so real.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
This is getting very interesting, indeed. Nationalreport.org is a leftist site and has only legitimate news stories on the site. Go check yourselves. The masthead is completely different than that shown above. Who is responsible? Probably the Republicans who are trying to differentiate themselves from Ted Cruz and the Tea Party crowd. In actuality, they are one and same, except the other Republicans do a superior job in hiding or attempting to hide their true beliefs. This is looking like a site set up by the Republicans to confuse people. The Republicans and other right wingers are not gifted in the arts of parody, satire (however much the Breitbarts and O’Keefes think they are), and they haven’t a clue about irony.
Circulating false information on public forums and publications must be the newest form of yellow journalism nowadays. Those who engage in this type of thing deserve what they get.
The Onion should publish an article about The National Report. I imagine a possible headline as:
Area woman blogs “The National Report is a hoax website” and is labeled a yellow journalist by Whitehouse Spokesperson.
These people are clearly Onion wannabes. You have to be pretty clueless to buy any of their articles. Have there even been any legitimate news sites that have fallen for one of these articles? If so, they deserve what they get.
“The Tea Party people are gullible indeed, but there are better ways to go after them than this.”
~+~
Yes, the IRS is much more effective.
Professor, the mainstream media have been lying to the public since their inception, peddling the national myths and propaganda du jour of the owners of America.. Ditto for Fox News, Michael Haz. Fox has taken mendacity in news reporting to a whole new level. I have never heard of this site. The Onion does an amazing job through satire, parody, and irony of ridiculing what passes for received wisdom, objective journalism, and legitimate political thought in America and more power to them. The Tea Party people are gullible indeed, but there are better ways to go after them than this. Did you know the Republicans have set up fake news sites for the upcoming election to fool people into voting Republican? Probably not. Verizon wouldn’t let me send the article to a friend, marking it spam, which it wasn’t. I no longer have the citation, will search for it.
Perhaps there is, in fact, a class action possible here. Because there are no disclaimers on this deception, if many are then lured into reposting this story then they have also been unwittingly lured into participating in whatever original transgressions may have existed with the original story.
I agree with the previous poster that while the original work could start pro-bono, if it was able to attain class action status there would be no reason why it need stay that way, and the damages attainable that way could end these practices quickly
The National Report is like fertilizer – just so much fancy packaging around manure.
These are the same people who edit Wikipedia articles. What can you expect?
Much of what has been published about Governor Scott Walker in several large state and national newspapers, and reported on network television outlets, could also fit into the hoax category. But they are “legitimate” news sources, so their malreporting about the John Doe investigation is given credibility, rather than being treated as hoax.
It isn’t a large leap from, say, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to the National Reporter. And frankly, the intermarriage between the news departments of ABC, CBS, NBC, and the White House leads to “news reporting” that is sometimes a near-hoax experience.
I have to admit, though, the National Reporter is pretty effective at what it does – lying to the public.
It looks like the Dem candidate for governor, Mary Burke, won’t be appearing w/ the poisonous President.
Thanks for posting on Labor Day. We cheeseheads have the distinct honor of having the most transparent President in Milwaukee today. Always good for a major traffic jam.
Sounds like a worthy pro bono case, JT.