Media prank

A media prank is a type of media event, perpetrated by staged speeches, activities, or press releases, designed to trick legitimate journalists into publishing erroneous or misleading articles. The term may also refer to such stories if planted by fake journalists, as well as the false story thereby published. A media prank is a form of culture jamming generally done as performance art or a practical joke for purposes of a humorous critique of mass media.

In May 1927, Jean-Paul Sartre, who was known as one of the fiercest pranksters at the École Normale Superieure organized with his comrades Nizan, Larroutis, Baillou and Herland, a media prank following Charles Lindbergh's successful New York-Paris flight. Sartre & Co. called newspapers telling them that Lindbergh would be awarded an honorary degree by the École. Many newspapers including Le Petit Parisien announced the event on May 25 and thousands showed up, unaware that they were witnessing a stunt with a look-alike. A scandal followed resulting in the resignation of the École director Gustave Lanson.

One well-known 1967 prank, orchestrated by Abbie Hoffman and Allen Ginsberg and chronicled in Norman Mailer's Armies of the Night, involved a mock gathering protesting the Vietnam War (that many media took as a serious but misguided effort) intended to levitate the Pentagon.

Joey Skaggs is one of the most prolific creators of media pranks in the United States, often using actors to stage outlandish public events that are then covered by news media as real stories. Among his many pranks, he convinced United Press International to report that cockroach hormones had been identified as a cure for arthritis, and tricked WABC-TV in New York city to create a news segment (which was nominated for an Emmy Award despite being untrue) about a supposed "cathouse for dogs".

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