New York Times Falls for April Fool’s Prank

The Gray Lady woke up this morning with a few extra gray hairs and a fish on her back. The New York Times‘ City Room blog fell for a hoax by New York personal-injury lawyer and blogger Eric Turkewitz.

Turkewitz claimed in an April 1 post that he’d been appointed official White House law blogger. He and a cohort of bloggers and tweeters posted corroborating responses and updates throughout the day. Eventually the Times picked up the story.

On discovery that something may have been amiss, City Room broke out a sulky, square-bracketeted Note on the “high likelihood that this post was an April Fool hoax.”

[Note: an earlier version of this column had an item about a blog post by a personal-injury lawyer, Eric Turkewitz, announcing that he had been appointed the White House law blogger. Blogospheric chatter indicates a high likelihood that this post was an April Fool hoax. Mr. Turkewitz declined to give us a straight answer on this score, so, pending callback from the White House, we've taken the item down.]

Turkewitz has since called his claim to the White house job an “April Fool’s stunt.” Sounds like a straight answer to us.

Here’s Turkewitz’s account of the prank. Who knew lawyers could be such effective jokesters?

(h/t Gawker, Mediaite)

Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.