WikiLeaks claims responsibility for fake Bill Keller column, citing donation ban

[struggle4progress]

Hoax including fake tweets and a counterfeit Times website dismissed as 'childish prank' by former editor Bill Keller
Ed Pilkington in New York
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 29 July 2012 14.18 EDT

WikiLeaks, the whistleblowing site set up by Julian Assange, has claimed that it was behind the fake opinion piece circulating on the internet under the name of Bill Keller, columnist and former executive editor of the New York Times ...

The organisation implied that it – or its "great supporters", whomsoever they might be – had carried out the stunt in a bid to embarrass the Times into covering the financial blockade of WikiLeaks by US companies ...

That WikiLeaks should have masterminded the hoax – assuming the group is telling the truth – is not entirely surprising. Assange had a falling out with the New York Times, and its then editor Bill Keller, after the paper published a profile of him that he deemed unflattering ...

"My views on WikiLeaks are widely misrepresented," a rather tired (real) Keller said. "This falls ham-handedly in the realm of misrepresentation." ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jul/29/bill-keller-fake-column-wikileaks?newsfeed=true

[msanthrope]

1. Well, shall we put to bed the idea that these are journalists? nt

[MADem]

2. Well, if the goal was to "stick it" to Keller, all they did was make him look victimized by

mendacious pranksters.

The prank was apparently in the works since March--you'd think they might have thought about how it would go over.

[msanthrope]

3. One wonders what the motive was. It certainly does not seem well-thought out.

I wonder if this is what real journalists do....

[girl gone mad]

4. Keller, another warmongering tool for the establishment elites.

Cheered us right into Iraq with his sleazy little editorials and NYT/neocon propaganda lies.

He's human filth.

[struggle4progress]

5. Could be: the whole of the corporate media was guilty of that, IIRC.

But disliking Keller wouldn't predispose me to like Wikileaks' BS

[girl gone mad]

6. That's because you have an agenda.

Sadly, your irrational hatred toward Assange has led to bad judgment, that you would lie down with a flea-ridden dog like Keller.

[struggle4progress]

8. It's actually because I have a tiny bit of experience doing grassroots organizing

You want to win the PR wars?

Then: stand firmly on the high moral ground; be a reliable source of information; provide informative and useful analyses; and don't play bullshit games

[hughee99]

7. Genius! Nothing helps Wikileaks more than intentionally disseminating false information.

Now we have an organization that's passing on all sorts of information without saying where or how they got it, and now they are putting it out there that they're not afraid to put out false information to push a specific agenda.

The CIA couldn't have come up with a better way to discredit them if they WANTED TO.

[vaberella]

9. Couldn't agree more. n/t