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Our donkey in hotel room case makes an ass of the world
Monday, 05 March 2007
Urban myth mania as a million hits force our website off line
BY DECLAN VARLEY
Our fictitious court case in last week’s paper in which a man was allegedly found in a Galway hotel room dressed in latex, handcuffs, and accompanied by a donkey, made an ass out of hundreds of thousands of webusers last week forcing our website to crash.
The fake case which featured in last week’s issue of Galway First was headlined “Lonely man brought donkey to hotel room, court told” and told the story of a South Galway man who had managed to smuggle the donkey past a gullible receptionist telling her it wa s a very big rabbit.
In the space of two days, more than one million people online had read the article from the Galway First website (www.galwayfirst.ie) or shared it online, with many news organisations around the world running it as a true story.
The case was featured on the Galway Worst satirical pages in our newspaper, but online readers have been convinced that the case really happened.
This led to the story being run as a true story on the Metro in London as well as on reputable news sites in the US and Germany. More than 50 affiliated TV stations in the US ran it as a true story in their “and finally” section at the end of their news bulletins.
Our office took more than 40 calls from newsrooms in Australia and Canada as newsteams struggled to verify the story.
It tells the story of how a man brought the donkey into the Galway hotel and dressed himself in latex and handcuffs, before the donkey ran amok in the hotel, rousing guests and leading to gardai being called.
For your information the court case in full is reprinted below.
Monday, 05 March 2007
Urban myth mania as a million hits force our website off line
BY DECLAN VARLEY
Our fictitious court case in last week’s paper in which a man was allegedly found in a Galway hotel room dressed in latex, handcuffs, and accompanied by a donkey, made an ass out of hundreds of thousands of webusers last week forcing our website to crash.
The fake case which featured in last week’s issue of Galway First was headlined “Lonely man brought donkey to hotel room, court told” and told the story of a South Galway man who had managed to smuggle the donkey past a gullible receptionist telling her it wa s a very big rabbit.
In the space of two days, more than one million people online had read the article from the Galway First website (www.galwayfirst.ie) or shared it online, with many news organisations around the world running it as a true story.
The case was featured on the Galway Worst satirical pages in our newspaper, but online readers have been convinced that the case really happened.
This led to the story being run as a true story on the Metro in London as well as on reputable news sites in the US and Germany. More than 50 affiliated TV stations in the US ran it as a true story in their “and finally” section at the end of their news bulletins.
Our office took more than 40 calls from newsrooms in Australia and Canada as newsteams struggled to verify the story.
It tells the story of how a man brought the donkey into the Galway hotel and dressed himself in latex and handcuffs, before the donkey ran amok in the hotel, rousing guests and leading to gardai being called.
For your information the court case in full is reprinted below.
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