142 The unIvErSAl JournAlIst

It was at this point that the man behind it all, one Joey Scaggs, stepped forward and revealed it was all a hoax.

Such attempts to hoodwink the press are by no means as uncommon as journalists think. Assorted hustlers, anarchists, gold-diggers and funsters have provided a rich history of spoof stories that found their way into print. Faked documents have been particularly successful. The Hitler Diaries took in The Times, Sunday Times, Stern magazine and others; the ‘memoirs’ of Howard Hughes (actually written by clifford Irving) fooled Life magazine into paying $250,000; the Parnell letters which expressed the Irish leader’s approval of political murders humiliated The Times when it proved to have been written by a man called Pigott for cash; and the Zinoviev letter showing the labour Party as a ‘front’ for Moscow was eagerly swallowed by the Daily Mail and conveniently published on election day in 1924. It was a forgery. These are well-known cases, but other hoaxes deserve a wider audience.

The radiation-proof cockroach

united Press International was once approached by Dr. Joseph Gregor, a leading world entomologist, and persuaded that he had developed a strain of nuclear-proof cockroach. Their extracted hormones would cure arthritis, acne and anaemia and protect people from radiation. The resultant story, ‘roach hormone held as miracle drug’ was sent round the world by uPI. Dr. Gregor was, of course, dog brothel inventor Joey Scaggs.

The topless string quartet

large sections of the uS press were duped in 1967 by stories about a forthcoming tour by these bare-breasted female musicians from France. The inspiration for this nonsense was one Alan Abel, who sent out press releases explaining that the musicians needed to play sans clothes in order to produce ‘pure and unhampered tones’. He also hired four models to pose in white gowns for publicity shots. After the stories appeared, requests for recitals came in and Frank Sinatra’s reprise label even offered them a recording contract.

The earliest sayings of Jesus

In May 1991 the Financial Times published a long article about the discovery of what seemed to be the earliest surviving text of the sayings of Jesus. only when the article was published did the paper realise the significance of the name of the supposed discoverer of the priceless find – Batson D. Sealing.

MISTAKES, corrEcTIonS AnD HoAXES 143

The Society for Indecency to Naked Animals

This was one of the more elaborate newspaper hoaxes, perpetrated by Alan Abel. The Society for Indecency to naked Animals was invented by Alan Abel in 1959. Abel hired an jobless actor called Buck Henry to impersonate the fictional founder of the society, G. clifford Prout Jr. He appeared on nBc’s ‘Today Show’ to demand all animals over four inches high should be clothed for decency’s sake, and Abel hired pickets to protest outside the White House and even set up a phone line and operator to take calls. Many newspapers published stories. The cover story was that SInA had been set up with money left to Prout by his father. This attracted the attention of the tax authorities and the IrS wrote to demand back tax. Whennoreplycame,theyvisitedSInA’soffices,foundabroomcupboard, and realised it was a hoax. Buck Henry went on to better things, getting a part in a soap opera and becoming a successful writer and actor in such Tv series and movies as ‘Get Smart’, ‘The Graduate’, ‘catch-22’ and ‘To Die For’.

The Fat Squad

In 1983, John corr of the Philadelphia Inquirer got a press release about a group of toughies called the Fat Squad, who were hired by the obese to physically restrain them from over-eating. corr rang the man named as the organiser, Joe Bones, and wrote the story, which was then widely picked up. The affair climaxed with an appearance on ABc’s ‘Good Morning America’ by Joe Bones and his strong arm squad. Joe Bones turned out to be persistent hoaxer Joey Skaggs. Some reporters, however, wise up before writing a story. one of Alan Abel’s inventions was ‘the Klu Klux Klan Symphony orchestra’, allegedly scraping away on their violins in an attempt to change the KKK’s image. Arizona Republic reporter Julia lobaco rumbled this straight away.

The great blonde extinction

In 2002, the BBc, nBc Tv affiliates, British national tabloids and many other papers round the world reported that the gene responsible for blonde hair would die out by the year 2022. The forecast was attributed to the World Health organisation, or ‘experts in Germany’. The WHo disclaimed any role in the story (and pointed out the scientific idiocy of it), and, of course, the ‘experts in Germany’ were anonymous and so untraceable. A hoax, or irresponsible, small-time, news agency seem the most likely origin of the story.

central to the success of all these hoaxes was the simple failure to check, and a taking at face value press releases or calls from plausible new ‘sources’. Preventing such attempts being printed should be a straight-