Video of Yes Men’s US Chamber of Commerce prank is an instant classic
The Yes Men, with help from another activist group, Avaaz, pranked the media yesterday by announcing that the US Chamber of Commerce would reverse its stance on the existence of climate change and legislation to control emissions of greenhouse gases. It’s quite the coup for the Yes Men.
I don’t know how I feel about the efficacy of this tactic in the long term. I’ve never been pranked in this way, nor would I want to be, and I’m about as comfortable with the use of pranks in this circumstance as I am when Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com sends out fake pimps and hos to shark the people at ACORN.
But in terms of exposing the way many of my media siblings deal with external stimuli, this is a pretty remarkable video. Perhaps the Yes Men didn’t intend it this way, but with Reuters admitting to their primarily financial clients that they screwed up bad (see Greg Sargent), the pranktivists revealed how much of a problem the media is in these situations. Perhaps they should try a mylar, UFO-shaped balloon in their next prank.
Anyways, watch the video. “I’m on deadline,” shouts one of the reporters at the press conference as the ‘real’ flack, to the extent that there ever is such a thing, interrupts the fake one:
HT: Anthony DeRosa and his new overnight Gawker shift.
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That’s amazing. In the end, I think all sides come out looking like they handled it pretty well. It’s only natural that journalists on tight deadlines fall for these types of pranks. Checking is part of the profession, but the rarely told secret is that a lot of the day-to-day stuff relies on trust.
[...] writer and now prolific interview-giver is actually conservatism’s answer to the Yes Men. There’s something just a little too perfect about how this is all [...]