Huffington Post Serves Up Hoax On Front Page
It’s hard to imagine anyone taking seriously a satirical proposal to build an airport on Central Park. Except maybe for the Huffington Post, which ran with the story on its front page tonight.
As shown in the attached screenshot, the website billed the airport plan as crucial New York news. Combine HuffPo’s hunger for traffic with its ugly habit of lifting content from other websites, and this is the amusing result; apparently the sarcasm in the original Curbed item was too subtle for the website’s editors.
If the concept doesn’t seem an obvious satire on its face, there’s always the over-the-top website, which calls Central Park a “blighted urban space” that needs to be “reclaim[ed]” and assures that Tavern on the Green will “be given the option of applying for a franchisee lease in the concourse food court.”
Then there’s the fact that the Manhattan Airport Foundation’s website supposedly dates to 2006 but did not register its domain name until April; that its Wikipedia page was created on July 16 of this year; and that it is located on the 58th floor of a building with 57 stories (hat tip to our own John Cook for digging up the last two).
We’re sure Arianna Huffington, a notorious micromanager of her website’s front page, will be thrilled.
Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
@Lock: So are you saying that Huffington Post is targeting the Onion's demographics with posting this story?
@blogenfreude: Yes, like the one of never allowing buses on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge so Blacks would not be able to move to Staten Island.
Captain Spaulding (Groucho Marx): Tell me, Mr. Chandler, where are you planning on putting your new opera house?
Chandler: Oh, I thought I should like to put it somewhere near Central Park.
Spaulding: I see. Why don't you put it right in Central Park?
Chandler: Could we do that?
Spaulding: Sure, do it at night when no one is looking.
Why don't you put it in the reservoir and get the whole thing over with?
Of course, that might interfere with the water supply. But after all we must remember that 'art is art.' Still, on the other hand, water is water, isn't it? And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like apple sauce, they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now, uh - now you tell me what you know.
--Animal Crackers (1930)
@92BuickLeSabre: srsly. If he couldn't ruin a neighborhood, it had no value to him.
@blogenfreude: Unlikely. Not enough residents to displace.
C'mon, Tate. I think anyone gets the joke, including, dare think it! The Huffington Post.
I emailed the Curbed item to them this afternoon in a winking way, after Kottke reblogged it. I don't think the item merits this kind of high-level derision, given, again, the obvious fact that, well, no one's actually going to build an airport in Central Park.
Though one can hope.
@NigelAstydameia: I'm guessing I'm the only one on here that really hoped the Staten Island track might get built one day.
@DeadFred: Hard Times and Real Misery indeed.
(Sadly, I don't think I can quite work in the neo-Nazi story.)
@Caius: At least there's a mention of a condom on the front page for Jon's great cock.
DeadFred
Airport? Such morons. Everybody knows it's going to be a NASCAR track.
NigelAstydameia
@Mount_Prion: Unless the debter is Jesse Watters, that is.
@VoxPopuli: Best of all, the headline seems to be claiming that Jon and Kate now have a girlfriend together. Jon and Kate plus eight plus Kate.
goetz
If Robert Moses were still alive, he'd think it was a good idea.
blogenfreude
@VoxPopuli: Saying Jon is a 'great cock' would be like calling him a big dick, though, so maybe it's valid?
Caius
@92BuickLeSabre: Even better: I first read that as "Great cock" and immediately felt ill.
Also a hoax, that Jon is a "Great Cook."
If I ever need to collect debts, I'm callin' me up John Cook.