Media MonsterWeird But True

That Time An 18-Year Old Kid Fooled Darren Rovell And The Entire Internet, Including Us

A while back, during the NBA lockout, we gave you the syndicated story of the owner of a New York escort service, who told CNBC’s Darren Rovell he was losing thousands of dollars on the basketball stoppage.

Well, joke was on Rovell, and… also on us.

An 18-year old high school senior, who described Rovell as a “douche,” decided to play a prank on the reporter when he saw one of his tweets in late November. Rovell was seeking the stories of those who were losing money on the lockout. The teenager, “Henry” (who’s real name is Tim) was looking to fool Rovell. In the end, the two exchanged many emails, and “Henry” led Rovell to believe he was losing thousands due to the NBA lockout. Rovell bought it, and the rest is history.

In fairness, we did wonder about aspects of the story at the time. A $4,000/hour rate? An average time spent with the escorts of four hours? Something was fishy from the jump.

And now I’m going to ask the question that has to be on your mind. How could Rovell just go with this? At no point did he ask to see this guy in person? Or… do more to vet out if this was some punk teenager try to play a joke on him? But we’re big enough to admit when other people were wrong, leading us to be wrong. It’s just part of the game. This is the danger of the Internet, ladies and gents. Read it with caution.

And for the record, Rovell wrote this explanation/apology letter in response to Deadspin’s story today:

“In a story I wrote here on CNBC.com on November 21, 2011 about the NBA Lockout called, “Small Business Owners Getting Squeezed by NBA Lockout” I was duped by a “source” and I’d like to explain to you my readers what happened.

The upside of Internet is that it gives a voice to millions of people that otherwise might not have a platform. In this case I used Twitter to crowd source a story about the real people affected by the NBA lockout. I got hundreds of responses from ballboys to ushers who chose to share their very personal stories. I tried to verify all stories by peppering people with questions to test their knowledge. The downside of Twitter is that the voice can hide behind a wall of anonymity.

The escort story made the cut because I thought it was different. As you can see in the published exchange I went back and forth with “Tim” in an attempt to ascertain whether his story was genuine. Feeling satisfied that the answers seemed real, we included it in the story.

He duped me. Shame on me. I apologize to my readers.

As a result I will do fewer stories on the real life impact of big events which I do think the public enjoys.

There will always be people out there who want their 15 minutes of fame and not really care how they get there.”

[Via Deadspin, photo via]

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