The Daily Currant is an Onion-like satirical news site, except not as funny and way less famous. Because of this, the site is often confused for a real news site, and some of its “reports” are picked up by legitimate outlets and mistaken for scoops. Most recently, a story about Charlie Sheen calling for Rob Ford‘s resignation made the rounds on the Internet, and resulted in real-Sheen offering the crack-smoking Toronto mayor his support.
Here are five other rather embarrassing times The Daily Currant has fooled readers:
1. The Odd Jobs of Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin‘s career moves appear to be fertile ground for the Currant, with one story about Palin joining Harvard as a “visiting scholar” duping an editor for TIME Magazine. Before that, The Washington Post fell for a perhaps even more implausible report that Palin took a job at Al Jazeera to “reach millions of devoutly religious people who don’t watch CBS or CNN,” as fake-Palin put in in the Currant‘s story.
2. Rick Santorum’s “Coffee” Habit
Anti-gay former senator and failed presidential candidate Rick Santorum was the subject of one story that described how he was spotted with the gay dating app “Grindr” on his phone. Fake-Santorum then claims he was confused about what the app was for: “Grindr? What? No.The yellow one? Oh, right. OK. Grindr. Like coffee grinds. Yeah, that’s something I downloaded for coffee. It finds the nearest Starbucks.” The phony report quickly went viral.
3. Ann Coulter vs. Star Trek
“Conservative commentator Ann Coulter walked out of a screening of Star Trek: Into Darkness last night, saying that the science fiction adventure had ‘too many minorities’,” an article on the Daily Currant proclaimed, banking that the conservative pundit’s history of saying incendiary things would give it an air of truth. They were right: Even Questlove tweeted it out.
4. Paul Krugman Goes Bankrupt
Breitbart.com was all too quick to jump on the report that Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman had declared bankruptcy “after racking up $84,000 in a single month on his American Express black card in pursuit of rare Portuguese wines and 19th century English cloth.”
5. Bloomberg’s Pizza Fail
New Yorkers angry at Michael Bloomberg for his proposed ban on large soft drinks thought they were getting a taste of vengeance when the Currant reported that the Mayor was denied a second slice of pizza at a Brooklyn pizza joint. They were wrong; as was The Drudge Report, which splashed the story on its homepage.
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