I told you to come back for an update....

As most of you have already realized, and some of you have let me know in comments, the statement from the French Foreign Ministry that I posted yesterday was an extremely well done and brilliant hoax. Did I know that when I posted it? Yes (astute readers may have noticed the post was tagged with "yes-men").

So why didn't I tell you, the faithful readers? Simple, it would have blown their cover! As of last night, I wasn't aware of anybody who had publicly labeled it a hoax, you think I could be the first? No way. The point was for the statement to get as much attention as possible, and downright shame the French government...what if some press agency used da google and saw my blog post outing it as a hoax? I would have ruined it all! And so I'm glad I didn't, even if it was slightly deceptive. So, did any major news outlets pick it up? I don't think so, but here is a snapshot of AFP's website this morning (not sure if the link will still work):

The headline reads: "France Pledges € 17 Billion to Help Haiti".

Okay, so my guess is that this is actually just part of the hoax (I swear, I don't know). In any case, today there are multiple news stories about how a fake press statement went out, but you know what? Mission accomplished. As Brooke Jarvis writes for YES!:

While the fake news release—a common tactic of the prankster activists the Yes Men, but not yet traced to a particular group—doesn’t seem to have fooled any major news outlets, it did bring the debt (and its contradiction with France’s public stance) into the spotlight.

And after all, that is what it is all about. So to those aspiring "Yes-Men" out there, keep up the good work.