Congrats to Dateline Hollywood, the satirical site run in part by my Variety colleague Ben Fritz. They did it again: A mainstream news outlet -- the U.K.'s The Sun -- picked up a joke article and reported it as fact.
Given their dry sense of humor over there, I'm doubly surprised that they didn't figure out that this was pure satire. The Dateline Hollywood story proclaims that Tori Spelling's newborn son has been cast to play her on-screen kid in the new TV show "InnSanity."
Not only did they not see the joke in this quote, the Sun printed it as fact:
According to casting director Anna McGarrah: "Liam was the first actor to audition for the role of Trip and he nailed the role so perfectly that there was no point in considering other actors."
"The other producers and I were shocked to find out he was Tori’s son, as he auditioned under a fake name."
Har! Here's the original Dateline story:
And here's The Sun's interpretation:
Back in December, Baltimore TV station WJZ picked up a Dateline Hollywood story reporting that Michael Richards attended a celebrity roast for Whoopi Goldberg in blackface. (The station later retracted its story.)
And all over the Internet, people still believe (because it was so believable) that Pat Robertson blamed Hurricane Katrina on the Emmys' decision to hire Ellen DeGeneres as host -- thanks to a Dateline Hollywood piece!
As always, nice work, guys.
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