Best Faked Interview Excuse Ever: Quotes So Good, Death Shouldn't Keep Them Down

Say That Again

from the file-that-one-away dept

Stories about reporters faking interviews are all too common these days. In fact, we had one just last week. Wired News has been burned by this in the past, so it’s perhaps not that surprising that they’re a bit more proactive in trying to make sure people being interviewed actually exist. They didn’t catch it before they published some articles by freelancer Philip Chien, but after looking into a few of his sources, Wired News has pulled down a few of his articles. What may be most interesting about this, though, is Chien’s excuses for using an email address that just so happened to come from the same IP address as his own computer as the supposed source of the quotes. Rather than just admit he made up “Ted Collins,” Chien told Wired News that Collins died in 1997, but “he liked his quotes so much he wanted to use them posthumously.”