Pittsburgh TV news WPXI aired information from “spoof report” about the Pittsburgh Steelers’ football star Hines Ward, Media Bistro’s TV Spy reported.
The station said Ward “had signed with the rival Baltimore Ravens,” but the information came from BroCouncil.com, according to TV Spy. The hoax information was aired March 7 during the 6 AM broadcast, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette noted.
However, the station’s Todd McDermott told viewers “just 17 minutes later” that the information was wrong. He said, according to TV Spy, “We got fooled by a Baltimore Ravens spoof website that said Hines Ward had signed with the Ravens. That can’t happen.”
According to the Post-Gazette, “BroCouncil.com is not spoof site, but it occasionally creates such reports, labeling them ‘spoofs.'” This is the BroCouncil report in question. Its URL lists “Spoofs” and at the bottom of the article, it says ‘Bro Council Spoofs.”
In a follow-up post, BroCouncil noted that it ‘wanted to clarify’ that the article was a spoof.