For over a year, the Belgian “research group” Data Driven has been sending out remarkable research results to the press that have been frequently picked up by Belgian and Dutch newspapers. Remarkable news snippets like: “the average Flamish Liberal (in the European sense) voter has more sex than other voters”.

Belgian newspaper Het Belang van Limburg however got suspicious and started to investigate the “research group”.

They found the “research group” is in fact the production company Woestijnvis (“desert fish”), who is behind a well known Belgian satyrical TV program, Man Bijt Hond (“Man Bites Dog”). The hoax “research news” according to a spokesman of the production company was intended for a new item in the TV program. He praised Het Belang van Limburg for being the only newspaper critical enough to unmask them.

Source (in Dutch)

thats interesting….hoax or other wise i bet the segment was funny

Yeah, I don’t know what it is like over there, but here in the States, it seems the mainstream media has gotten incredibly lazy over the last 10-15 years.  From using Wikipedia as the SOLE research on a story, to failing to dig into politicians’ history if they represent a certain party (whichever one the station/network supports this year), the reporters seem happy to take things a face value. (And if they should, heaven forbid, discover that they were in error, the retraction is buried onto page 47 or the TV equivalent and never mentioned again.  this often leaves the general public with false facts and/or reasoning on any given issue.

I really think that some of the BEST “true” reporting is being done by some of the private blogs on the web.