News Outlets Fall For Parody That Took Credit For Brooklyn Bridge White Flags

A white flag flies atop the west tower of New York's Brooklyn Bridge, Tuesday, July 22, 2014. Someone replaced two American flags on the bridge with mysterious white flags. The white flags, international symbols of s... A white flag flies atop the west tower of New York's Brooklyn Bridge, Tuesday, July 22, 2014. Someone replaced two American flags on the bridge with mysterious white flags. The white flags, international symbols of surrender, fluttered from poles on the stone supports that hold cables above the bridge connecting Brooklyn and Manhattan. An entity called Bike Lobby tweeted Tuesday that it hoisted the flags to signal “surrender of the Brooklyn Bridge bicycle path to pedestrians.” (AP Photo/Richard Drew) MORE LESS
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Two prominent news outlets were fooled Tuesday by a Twitter parody account that claimed responsibility for replacing two American flags atop the Brooklyn Bridge with white flags.

@BicycleLobby, an account that makes fun of bicycle opponents from the perspective of a fake “all-powerful” cycling lobby, tweeted that it was responsible for the switch soon after photos of the white flags began to circulate on social media:

Both the Associated Press and the New York Daily News later ran stories linking the parody account to the mysterious flag replacement.

Below is the AP’s story as it was posted to CNBC.com:

Two Associated Press reporters also apparently requested comment from @BicycleLobby via Twitter and were referred to the account’s profile. @BicycleLobby acknowledges that it is a parody account in the second line of its Twitter profile and also describes itself as “an all-powerful enterprise,” channeling Wall Street Journal editorial board members Dorothy Rabinowitz’s memorable anti-bike share rant.

The Associated Press story posted to CNBC’s website was later updated without explanation to reflect that @BicycleLobby was a parody account. The reference to @BicycleLobby was also removed from the Daily News story without explanation.

Although the person or people behind @BicycleLobby apparently didn’t expect to be taken seriously, the parody account clearly relished its success in fooling the news outlets:

This post has been updated.

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Notable Replies

  1. @BicycleLobby, an account that parodies that subset of New Yorkers who are fanatic cycling advocates.” This is not in fact true. The account was established after Dorothy Rabinowitz who stated that CitiBike would begrime the city and accused the spread of cycling on an “all powerful bicycle lobby.” The twitter account parodies the voices in Rabinowitz head and is not parodying cycle advocates.

  2. Avatar for jw1 jw1 says:

    Krystal Ball is feeling slightly more chipper today.

    jw1

  3. Krystal is just a newsreader, that wasn’t her fault. The blame lies with the producer for not screening it.

  4. is that possible?

  5. This is what comes of taking critical thinking out of the schools. People who should know better begin to believe any old herpderpery they see in print or on the Foxnews.

    Hey, I just had a think! Could that be the REASON critical thinking was removed from the schools? Food for thought.

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