News Media Takes a Holiday from Fact-Checking

Image via CrunchBaseRyan Holiday, if one were to believe HARO (Help A Reporter Out), a Web site of source listings for reporters, is an expert in topics ranging from boats and vinyl phonograph albums to insomnia. It turns out, however, according to Poynter.org, that Holiday's expertise is in the field of chain-yanking media outlets, including ABC News, Reuters, and the venerable New York Times.

Holiday, author of Trust Me,I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator, who is having a book release party tonight (if one can believe him), was interviewed by Forbes and the Columbia Journalism Review about his exploits, which involved misleading nearly two dozen journalists. Holiday said he wanted to illustrate online journalism problems caused by journalists' reliance on sites such as HARO for sourcing.

Reuters interviewed him as an expert on "Generation Yikes", Manitouboats.com sought his knowledge about winterizing watercraft, while the New York Times talked to him about collecting vinyl records, which he later confessed he doesn't collect.  Most of the snookered news outlets have since published editor's notes, corrections or retracted their Holiday content.

Seems as if the Holiday involved is April Fools Day.