The Drudge Report needs to start fact checking. The conservative news aggregation website was tricked by a satire story from The Daily Currant claiming that a Brooklyn restaurant would not sell New York’s mayor Mike Bloomberg a second slice of pizza.
The Daily Currant‘s May 2 article, “Bloomberg Refused Second Slice of Pizza at Local Restaurant,” claimed:
“New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was denied a second slice of pizza today at an Italian eatery in Brooklyn.
“The owners of Collegno’s Pizzeria say they refused to serve him more than one piece to protest Bloomberg’s proposed soda ban, which would limit the portions of soda sold in the city.”
The Drudge Report linked to that Daily Currant story on May 3 at the top of its homepage with the headline: “NO PIZZA FOR YOU!”
The Drudge Report posted a Daily Currant satire story on its homepage. (Credit: Drudge Report Archives, screenshot)
Tweeter @nycsouthpaw caught the error and posted screenshot of the story on Drudge’s website, Gawker noted.
NO CORRECTION FOR YOU!
The story no longer appears on the Drudge Report’s homepage, as of May 3 at 10:45 AM EST. But, iMediaEthics checked the Drudge Report Archives and found the story in the “May 3, 2013 12:02:50 GMT edition of the Drudge Report.”
The Drudge Report also tweeted about the story.
The Daily Currant has recently duped a few news outlets in the past few months, as iMediaEthics has written.
In February, the Washington Post fell for a Daily Currant story saying that Sarah Palin was going to start working for Al Jazeera. The Daily Currant told us that the tWashington Pos wasn’t just duped by the story, but it also mis-quoted the Daily Currant story.
In March, Breitbart.com reported on a Daily Currant story claiming that Paul Krugman went bankrupt.
And, in late April, Polish magazine Wprost was hoaxed by a Daily Currant story that said Sarah Palin called for President Obama to invade the Czech Republic.