Black backers turn out to be Frank prank
Frank magazine cleverly hornswoggled Conrad Black and a good part of the media by keeping a hoax website supportlordblack up and running and making news for more than a month. It revealed its prank in the current issue (sub req'd to read online). According to Patricia Best's column in the Globe and Mail, the Globe was one outlet which was taken in; others were New York magazine, the National Post, the Toronto Star, Canadian Business and Editor and Publisher (which confesses how it was duped in a lengthy article).
The supposed author of the website, Alastair Smith, was really Michael Bate, Frank's editor and publisher. So smoothly was the hoax carried out that Black himself, possibly with visions of legions of supporters wearing black armbands flying in to form a gallery at his Chicago trial (starting next week) wrote an e-mail to "Smith":
The supposed author of the website, Alastair Smith, was really Michael Bate, Frank's editor and publisher. So smoothly was the hoax carried out that Black himself, possibly with visions of legions of supporters wearing black armbands flying in to form a gallery at his Chicago trial (starting next week) wrote an e-mail to "Smith":
"I am again flattered by such a thing. I will give you all CONRAD WILL WIN shirts when you are here."
posted by D. B. Scott at
10:17 am
2 Comments:
this is a freakin' awesome hoax. if you really want to vomit, read some of the letters of support.
This hoax was hilarious - and very helpful in showing who the right-wing mouthpiece papers/mags are in this country - oh, yeah, all of them. Maclean's, Globe, Post, and all the trashy city tabs and free tabs. Black is a huge part of the reason for these non-journalists' success - in a real democracy, objectivity would be the norm. Hope he and Babs go down in flames... Thanks, Frank!
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