Yesterday we wrote about a story on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation web site that fell in the too-ridiculous-to-be-true-so-it-must-be-true category.
Specifically, a comedy radio show on CBC posted a fictional story and interview about a Texas town that was adding sugar to its tap water to increase water consumption.
Yes, we mocked comedic fictional news. Now we will never know whether to believe CBC stories about Canadian federal election robo-caller “Pierre Poutine!”
How will we know if New Brunswick’s “Harlequin Duck” is really at risk of joining the endangered species list? Or is that story just something mocking Harlequin romance novels, which are published by a sister company of the Toronto Star, a rival to CBC news?
3 More Stories We Wonder If We Should Trust CBC About
1. The NHL is in some sort of lockout. Sure CBC may have reported about this, but how do we really know, unless we head down to the Nassau Coliseum that nobody is playing hockey there? Has anyone checked? We will be especially suspicious if we look on the CBC web site and find any NHL reports written under the pseudonym “Don Cherry Garcia Ice Cream.”
2. Manitobans reach for shovels after first snowfall. Are we really to believe they’re reaching for shovels, and not reaching for Tim Hortons’ double doubles to try to melt the snow, whatever that means?
3. Justin Bieber’s Twitter Prank Riles Two Texans. So CBC, it all comes full circle, eh? You wrote an article about Justin Bieber posting a fake, incomplete Texas phone number on Twitter with the message “Call me,” leading to thousands of calls to a few Texas phone numbers. And now, the CBC web site pranks the world with a fake story about Texas sugar-coated water. Dear CBC: is Justin Bieber secretly running your web page, and why does there appear to be a joint goal to prank Texas?
