Internet is abuzz with April Fool’s media pranks

Starting Monday, The Cutline will cease publishing general interest media news and instead become a blog devoted exclusively to coverage of the royal wedding, Piers Morgan's ratings, and the latest updates on Katie Couric's contract negotiations.

Kidding!

Yes, in the grand tradition of April Foolery, the Internet is abuzz today with apocryphal articles and other wily pranks. The winner so far--judging by the overwhelmingly positive reaction on Twitter--is the Hulu homepage's journey back in time to 1996, pictured above.

But the online video site is hardly the only media shop getting in on the fun.

"Today marks a significant transition for The Huffington Post Media Group, as we introduce digital subscriptions for employees of The New York Times," Arianna Huffington said in a statement that landed in The Cutline's inbox early this morning. "It's an important step that we hope you will see as an investment in The Huffington Post, one that will strengthen our ability to provide high-quality journalism to readers around the world--and especially to our readers inside The New York Times."

The punchline, of course, is that Arianna Huffington has been feuding with Times executive editor Bill Keller over his recent remarks disparaging her website's aggregation practices, just as his own website began charging readers (starting with Canadians) for online content.

"The change comes in two stages," Huffington's continued in her spoof. "Last week, we rolled out digital subscriptions to our readers in Winnipeg, Canada, which enabled us to fine-tune the customer experience. Plus, they're Canadians, eh? Today, we will begin offering digital subscriptions to employees of The New York Times. If you don't live in Winnipeg or are not an employee of The New York Times, you will continue to have full and free access to our news, information, opinion, and the rest of our rich offerings."

Meanwhile, across the pond, The Guardian has gone from left-leaning U.K. broadsheet to monarchy-loving news source of all things royal.

"In a significant change of course, we today pledge our full-throated support for the British monarchy," reads a spurious April 1 editorial.

"Beginning today," the editorial continues, "the Guardian announces a raft of changes designed to ensure that our royal coverage is unrivalled by any other media organisation. We begin an unprecedented month-long, 24-hour royal wedding live blog, offering minute-by-minute coverage of the preparations. We will be recalling correspondents from some less newsworthy parts of the globe, such as north Africa and south-east Asia, so they can focus on palace matters instead."

(The Guardian's editor-in-chief, Alan Rusbridger, revealed his true feelings about Prince William and his bride-to-be in an interview with The Cutline last week: "He is not even next in line for the throne, so his constitutional significance is pretty tiny at the moment. It will be a nice human story on the day, but we won't go overboard.")

The fake April Fool's article has a long, rich history. For instance, as Jack Shafer recalled in a 2007 Slate column, there was "the April 2000 Esquire feature about 'Freewheelz,' an Illinois startup that promised 'self-financing, free cars' to consumers. Every time you spot Discover magazine on the newsstand, you growl because you fell for its April 1995 article about the discovery of the ice-melting, penguin-eating hotheaded naked ice borer. Your father probably still gripes about Sports Illustrated's April 1, 1985, article about Sidd Finch, the New York Mets prospect who could throw a baseball 168 mph."

Why are readers so credulous?

"April Fools' hoaxes succeed because the victims, conditioned by a stream of implausible but true stories in the press, aren't expecting the sucker punch," Shafer wrote in his guide to outsmarting the pranks.

Third piece of advice on the list? "Shun the British press," Shafer cautions. "The British tabloids make stories up all the time, but on April Fool's Day, everybody on Fleet Street fabricates."

Indeed, The Daily Mail reports today that princess-in-waiting Kate Middleton was spotted shopping for baby clothes and smoking cigarettes. And if the U.K. Sun is to be believed, gorillas are using iPads as part of a zoo experiment.

You can find more about those and other fantastical headlines in a roundup over at The Toronto Sun. In the meantime: Don't believe everything you read!