Literal fake news circulated around Washington, D.C., on Wednesday — in the guise of The Washington Post.
Fake editions of the newspaperr claiming President Donald Trump was leaving office were handed out at multiple locations in the nation’s capital, the Post reported.
The print fakes, dated May 1, 2019, are a dead-ringer to actual copies of the Post — and were filled with anti-Trump stories, which also appeared on a website that mimicked the official Post site.
The Post’s media reporter Eric Wemple posted a copy he said he fished out of the trash.
The Post’s PR department quickly released a statement cautioning “there are fake print editions of The Washington Post being distributed around downtown DC, and we are aware of a website attempting to mimic The Post’s. They are not Post products, and we are looking into this.”
Late Wednesday morning, The Yes Men, a group that describes itself as a “trickster activist collective,” said it produced the bogus newspapers and website, the Post reported.
The group tipped off the liberal activist group MoveOn about their stunt, which posted photos of the activists handing out the fake newspapers to Instagram early in the morning, Business Insider reported.
A statement posted online by the Yes Men said author Onnesha Roychoudhuri created the paper with author L.A. Kauffman, the Post reported.
“The story this paper tells is more reasonable than our current reality,” Roychoudhuri said in the statement, the Post reported. “And it’s anything but far-fetched. We’re already seeing unprecedented levels of protest and resistance. Now we just need to ask ourselves: What’s next? This paper offers a blueprint to help us reclaim our democracy.”
The fake Post carried its fake story under the headline, “Unpresidented,” and said Trump had left a resignation message on a napkin in the Oval Office and left Washington for Yalta, the Crimean resort that hosted a meeting of Allied leaders during World War II.
The false story also reported that his abrupt departure was prompted by “massive women-led protests” around the country. A women’s march is actually planned on Saturday, the Post noted.
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