Universal settles over fake news for 'The Fourth Kind'
John McKay, the Anchorage lawyer who negotiated the settlement for the Fairbanks paper and six other media outlets, said the fake online stories undermined the credibility of the news organizations. Universal created a series of fabricated online news articles to publicize the movie about a purported plague of alien abductions in Nome a decade ago (and yet nothing about the deadly vampire attacks from 30 Days of Night). The articles posted appeared to be from real Alaska publications.
The articles included a fake obituary and news story about the death of a character in the movie, Dr. William Tyler, that supposedly were from the News-Miner. The settlement also requires Universal to remove the fake news articles from the Internet. And that, ladies and gentlemen, explains the asterisk in The Juice* -- by now you've got to realize half of what we write can't possibly be true!
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Make this your daily (heck, hourly) stop for a fresh serving of pop smarts and cool things from around Tampa Bay and the nation. Compiled by tbt* jack-of-all-trades Joshua Gillin and his merry band of rogue journalists, it pokes fun at ridiculous celebrity worship, collects entertainment tidbits and features fun links to amuse and amaze you and your friends.
