SGB taken in by GM-Specialized spoof, blames naughty RSS




Yesterday’s fake news story on BikeBiz.com was flashed as real by SGB Update, a leading email newsletter for the global sports market.

In fact, it was SGB’s top story for the first of April. Oops.

The newsletter emailed a retraction a few hours later:

“This morning’s issue of SGB UPDATE included a story entitled “General Motors Acquires Specialized Bicycle Components.” The story, which was apparently an April’s Fool Day hoax, was inadvertently picked up in our news feeds.

“After follow up this morning by our editorial team, we have determined that the story is not accurate. Specialized is not being acquired by GM.

“We apologize for any issues that this may have caused for our readers.”

Inadvertently picked up in news feeds? Bollocks. A lead news story placed in an email newsletter didn’t get there via RSS.

The “follow up” by an editorial team should have taken place before the story was nicked. It’s basic common sense to check, and basic web decency to cite where a story has been lifted from.

No doubt there were red faces at SGB yesterday because any journalist worth his or her salt would have tried to verify the story by, at the verry least, going to the Specialized and GM websites.

I’m not overly surprised a major marketing newsletter was hoodwinked, the spoof San Jose Business Journal was brilliantly executed by Fritz, but for them to blame “news feeds” and not their sloppy reporting is poor form.



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