Matthew Flamm: I'm the reporter Fox News conned

[brooklynite]

Crain's New York Business:

There are six steps to perpetrating a classic con, according to the 1923 book Confessions of a Confidence Man. My favorite—the one that best summarizes how in 2008 Fox News duped me in order to discredit my reporting—is the third in the list, known as the "Build-up."

That's where the con artist (in this case the Fox News publicity department) introduces the scheme to the sucker (that would be me) by "rousing his greed, showing him the chance of profit and filling him so full of anticipation and cupidity that his judgment is warped and his caution thrown away."

...snip...

In any case, there is no benefit in admitting to having been played for a mark, but the story is out there in the new book Murdoch's World: The Last of the Old Media Empires by NPR reporter David Folkenflik, and in Erik Wemple's column in The Washington Post.

I write now because not all the details of that elaborate ruse have come to light. My hope is that it will prove instructive to hear how one gets conned, even if the reaction of most readers—the reaction I'm sure I would have had—is likely to be: Oh, that would never happen to me.

[Squinch]

1. Those people are so slimy! How do they sleep?

[xfundy]

2. Upside down, with their little claws digging into the rafters.

[Squinch]

3. .