On the day The New York Times outed a “senior fellow at the Institute of Nonexistence,” New Yorkers were passing around a special edition of the Times that declared the end of the war in Iraq.
Thousands of free copies were distributed at subway stations and public squares throughout the city. I snared a collector’s edition on my way to the iFOCOs-WeMedia breakfast mixer at the Samsung Experience at Columbus Circle.
So good I wished it was real, including priceless corrections and apologies from The Times for being complicit in making the case for the war, monopolizing media, trashing the environment, and profiteering. Unfair, but very funny. And very well done.
The elaborate hoax was the work of the Yes Men, accomplished political jokesters and impersonators who financed the paper with small online contributions and created the paper to urge President-elect Barack Obama to keep his campaign promises. The Yes Men issued a statement stating that the elaborate operation was six months in the planning. More than a million papers were printed at six different presses and driven to prearranged pickup locations, where thousands of volunteers stood ready to pass them out on the street.
The hoax was accompanied by a Web site that mimics the look of The Times’s real Web site. A page of the spoof site contained links to dozens of progressive organizations, which were also listed in the print edition.
