Bare arsed fake news spoofs The Manchester Evening News

The Manchester Evening News was pranked into publishing a fake news story about a “naked streak” supposedly taking place in the city to raise funds for the Manchester Pride Community Fund.

The fake story was pitched to journalists by campaigners from the FactsMCR organisation (a LGBT group who are opposed to the way the annual Pride event is organised and managed) who wanted to highlight alleged inaccuracies in the MEN’s coverage of the city’s Pride event.

FactsMCR member Geoff Stafford told journalists: “We weren’t happy with the standard of journalism. We thought this stuff was coming from press releases so we put out a press release to see if the Evening News would do any fact-checking.”

The spoof press release included a number of fake quotes from Pride organisers and local councillors, including the rather shameless line: “I always like a sausage at our world-beating Christmas market, but I’m not sure residents are ready to see mine.”

The story ran for five minutes under the headline: “There’s going to be a massive naked streak through the streets of Manchester” before being taken down. However, evidence of the story still remains on Google and a number or social media networks.

A spokesperson for the MEN’s owner Trinity Mirror told journalists: “The story was posted online in good faith, however after less than five minutes it was taken down when the error was realised.

“All efforts were made to remove the story from social media as quickly as possible. We have apologised to the chief executive of Pride, Mark Fletcher, who was very understanding.”

The spokesperson added: “As for accusations of ‘misinformation’, the only example which has been forthcoming relates to the reporting of attendance figures from 17 years ago.”

The question many PR professionals will be asking is how did this fake news release breach the editorial line of defence so easily when their genuine press releases fail to make the grade? Perhaps more bare arsed cheek is required when pitching.