Wednesday, April 1, 2015

In Reporting Fake News for April Fools, GMA Plays Trick on Itself

Although I watched "Candid Camera," I've never been a big fan of April Fools and practical jokes in general.

But the folks over at GMA seem to be big fans.

They kept talking about April Fools this morning.

href="http://abcnews.go.com/international/video">World News Videos
| US News Videos
Then they did some actual segments that were fake news -- to show they can have fun, I guess.


World News Videos | US News Videos

At one point, George Stephanopoulos held up a sign that said, "Happy April Fools."

I know -- it's all in good clean fun. But the segments weren't funny.

And given credibility issues surrounding NBC's Brian Williams and Fox's Bill O'Reilly, I think it's a bad idea for professional broadcast journalists to play on-air practical jokes on their viewers. It's okay to have fun but the credibility of their news readers is too important to play with.

At the risk of looking like I have no sense of humor, leave the April Fool gags to the late night talk show hosts.

No comments: