When Jayson Blair got a job writing for The New York Times, he was a young man, straight out of college. He advanced quickly, despite frequent complaints about the quality of his work, becoming a full-time staff reporter in 2001 and getting promoted to the national desk in 2002. But in April 2003, a reporter for the San Antonio Express-News notified the Times about suspicious similarities between a story Blair had just written and one she had written a week earlier.

The Times investigated and concluded that not only had Blair plagiarized from the Express-News reporter, but that his entire career at the Times had been a "long trail of deception." They found numerous instances in which Blair either copied from other reporters or included fictitious details in his articles.

Faced with these findings, Blair resigned on May 2, 2003. On May 11, 2003 the Times published a front-page article detailing Blair's fabrications. The article referred to the scandal as "a low point in the 152-year history of the newspaper."

Following his resignation, Blair returned to college to complete his degree. (It turned out he had lied to the Times about having graduated.) A year later he published a memoir about the scandal, Burning Down My Masters' House: My Life at the New York Times.

Jay Forman wrote an occasional "Vice" column for the online magazine Slate.com. In it he often described various bizarre activities he had engaged in or witnessed over the years. For instance, one column probed the synergies between guns and liquor. Another discussed his short career in the pornography trade. In his 8 June 2001 column, he described his participation in the extreme sport of monkey fishing.

Monkey fishing, in Forman's usage of the term, was not a slang expression for some untraditional method of fishing for fish. Forman meant exactly what he said. He went fishing for monkeys. More >>>

Esquire magazine's November 1996 cover featured Allegra Coleman, said to be a hot new star taking Hollywood by storm. "Forget Gwyneth, Forget Mira," the cover declared. "Here's Hollywood's next Dream Girl."

The feature article inside described the buzz building around her. David Schwimmer, star of Friends, was said to be her on-again, off-again boyfriend, although he was getting some competition from Quentin Tarantino who had apparently dumped Mira Sorvino to go out with her. It was even rumored that Woody Allen had completely overhauled his next movie so that she could star in it. "The real thing," the article gushed. "She has it." More >>>

On 31 October 1992, Britain's BBC TV aired a 90-minute documentary called Ghostwatch. The program was advertised as a live investigation into reports of supernatural activity at a council house in North London. The show was anchored by a group of well-known television reporters: Michael Parkinson, Sarah Greene, Mike Smith and Craig Charles.

Michael Parkinson and Mike Smith both reported from a TV studio, where calls were being taken from the public. Experts on supernatural activity were interviewed via a satellite hook-up. Sarah Greene and Craig Charles reported live on location from the house itself.

However, events quickly took a sinister turn. A wet patch appeared in the middle of the carpet. The noise of cats was heard emanating from the walls, and scratches appeared all over body of a young girl... More >>>

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, the Russian government struggled to mend its ailing economy, but the nation's financial situation remained dire. In November 1991, Forbes FYI, an American business magazine, revealed just how hopeless the Russian economic situation had become. It reported that the Russian government, desperate for foreign currency, had decided to sell the embalmed body of Vladimir Lenin to the highest bidder. The body had been on public display in a Red Square mausoleum for decades. The bidding would start at $15 million.

ABC News and USA Today both repeated the story. Subsequently the editor of Forbes FYI revealed that it was a hoax. Russian Interior Minister Viktor Barrannikov denounced the joke as "an impudent lie."

On April 22, 1983 the glossy German news magazine Stern issued a press release announcing what it promised was "the most important historical event of the last ten years." It had discovered the personal diary of Adolf Hitler -- a massive, multi-volume work spanning the years 1932-1945.

Stern's announcement generated a media frenzy. Magazines and news agencies bid for the right to serialize the diary. Journalists, historians, and World War II buffs eagerly anticipated what revelations it would contain. Skeptics, however, insisted it had to be a fake.

The skeptics turned out to be right. Less than two weeks after Stern's initial announcement, forensics experts at the West German Bundesarchiv issued a press release of their own, denouncing the diaries as a "crude forgery." More >>>

An article that appeared in the Washington Post on September 29, 1980 told a heartwrenching tale. It detailed the life of 'Jimmy,' a young boy who had apparently become a victim of the thriving heroin trade that was devestating the low-income neighborhoods of Washington D.C. Caught in a cycle of addiction, violence, and despair, Jimmy had become a heroin addict after being introduced to the drug by his mother's live-in boyfriend. As Janet Cooke, the author of the article, described him, "Jimmy is 8 years old and a third-generation heroin addict, a precocious little boy with sandy hair, velvety brown eyes and needle marks freckling the baby-smooth skin of his thin brown arms." She noted that Jimmy aspired to be a heroin dealer when he grew up.

The story immediately generated controversy. Many demanded that Cooke reveal where the boy lived so that he could be helped. However, Cooke refused to provide his location, claiming she needed to protect her sources and that her life would be in danger from drug dealers if she failed to do so. Meanwhile, the city government launched an intensive search to find him. More >>>

In 1960, twenty-year-old Dan Rattiner started a small paper during his summer vacation in the Hamptons. He gave copies of it away for free, making money from the advertisements. It was the first free paper in the United States. Gradually Dan started more papers, each of them serving a different community in the Hamptons. He called all of them collectively Dan's Papers, and they soon became the most widely read papers in the Hamptons. Dan wrote most of the content himself, but from the start he approached the task with a sense of humor. Many of the stories were humorous hoaxes, which earned him the nickname the "Hoaxer of the Hamptons." More >>>

In June 1971 Robert Patterson, a 66-year-old newsman, filed a series of five reports for the San Francisco Examiner detailing his odyssey through mainland China. His journey was inspired by the popular interest in Chinese culture following President Nixon's official visit to that country. The series ran on the Examiner's front page.

Patterson discussed details such as his difficulty obtaining an entry visa, witnessing Chinese citizens doing calisthenics in the street every morning, and receiving acupuncture at a Chinese hospital for chronic hip pain.

However, his reports caused Paul Avery, a reporter at the rival San Francisco Chronicle, to become suspicious. Avery noted Patterson had not reported anything he "couldn't have picked up by doing some research or by watching the President's trip on TV."

Learning of Avery's suspicions, the Examiner started its own investigation. They discovered there was no record of Patterson having received a visa to enter China. When questioned about this, Patterson admitted he had been unable to receive a visa. He said he had entered China illegally, but he insisted he had gone. However, he couldn't come up with any evidence he had gotten further than Hong Kong: no hotel receipts, travel photos, or hospital record of his acupuncture treatment.

In August 1972 the Examiner published an apology to its readers, stating it had concluded that Patterson had invented his reports of "China from the inside." Patterson was fired.

In 1959 Bob Richards, editor of the Nevada-based Territorial Enterprise, announced that a camel race would be held that year down the main street of Virginia City. He challenged other local papers to race their camels in the event. More >>>

On April 1, 1957 the British news show Panorama broadcast a three-minute segment about a bumper spaghetti harvest in southern Switzerland. The success of the crop was attributed both to an unusually mild winter and to the "virtual disappearance of the spaghetti weevil." The audience heard Richard Dimbleby, the show's highly respected anchor, discussing the details of the spaghetti crop as they watched video footage of a Swiss family pulling pasta off spaghetti trees and placing it into baskets. The segment concluded with the assurance that, "For those who love this dish, there's nothing like real, home-grown spaghetti." The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest hoax generated an enormous response. Hundreds of people phoned the BBC wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti tree. To this query the BBC diplomatically replied, "Place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best." To this day the Panorama broadcast remains one of the most famous and popular April Fool's Day hoaxes of all time. More >>>

In August 1951, 59-year-old science reporter Hugh Stewart approached his editors at the Chicago Herald-American with a hot tip. He had learned that a Chicago mother was about to give birth to sextuplets. It would be the first time a confirmed birth of sextuplets had occurred in America.

Stewart offered no verifiable sources for the news. He insisted that "if I break my informants' confidence it will ruin me." Nor could he disclose the mother's name because "critical medical and psychological problems necessitate such protection." Nevertheless, the Herald-American decided to run his story on its front page. It appeared on August 21 under the headline, "Mother Here Expects 5 or 6 Babies." The article disclosed that "Obstetricians, using stethoscopes, have detected the heartbeats of six babies." More >>>

In November 1922 Howard Carter located the entrance to the tomb of Tutankhamun. By February he and his team had unsealed the door of the Burial Chamber. But a mere two months later, on April 5, 1923, the sponsor of his expedition, Lord Carnarvon, died in his Cairo hotel room, having succumbed to a bacterial infection caused by a mosquito bite. The media immediately speculated that Carnarvon had fallen victim to King Tut's Curse. This curse supposedly promised death to all who violated his tomb. More >>>

On December 28, 1917 H.L. Mencken published an article in the New York Evening Mail titled "A Neglected Anniversary." It described the history of the bathtub in America, noting that people were slow to accept tubs, believing they were dangerous to health. This attitude, Mencken said, changed when President Millard Fillmore became the first president to install a tub in the White House.

Mencken's history of the bathtub was not true. He intended it as a joke, "some harmless fun in war days". However, few people recognized it as such. Details from Mencken's article began to appear in other papers. One scholar included the tale in a history of hygiene.

After eight years, hoping to put a stop to the continued widespread acceptance of his invented tale as true history, Mencken confessed to his hoax in a front-page article in the Chicago Tribune. But his confession did little to stop the tale's spread. If anything, his fake history spread even further. President Truman was known to repeat the story of Millard Fillmore and the bathtub when showing visitors around the White House. To this day, many people still believe that Mencken's fake history of the bathtub is true. More >>>

On June 25, 1899 four Denver newspapers reported that the Chinese government was going to tear down portions of the Great Wall of China, pulverize the rock, and use it to build roads. American companies were said to be bidding on the enormous demolition project. Newspapers throughout the country picked up the story, but it eventually became apparent the news was not true. The Chinese were not planning to tear down the Great Wall. Four Denver reporters — Al Stevens, Jack Tournay, John Lewis, and Hal Wilshire — had invented the tale while sharing a drink at the Oxford Hotel in order to spice up a slow news day. A rumor later suggested that when the news reached China, the Chinese become so furious at the idea of Americans tearing down the Great Wall, that they took up arms against Westerners in the Boxer Rebellion. This rumor was not true. More >>>