JOEYSKAGGS.COM KAUAI resident and media hoaxer Joey Skaggs will be interviewed at 9 p.m. Friday on ABC's "20/20" by John Stossel as part of a special about the media. Kauai hoaxer Joey Skaggs
demonstrates how to fool usBy Tim Ryan
tryan@starbulletin.comFor more than three decades, Skaggs has taken great pleasure in duping news media to expose gaps in verification processes and to remind people that American journalism is built on trust and the freedom to make mistakes.
Some of Skagg's hoaxes in recent years have included a company called Investors Real Estate Development which supposedly announced plans for a cemetery amusement park, featuring gaudy memorials, roller coasters, a souvenir shop, and refreshments at "Dante's Grill." It was all on a Web site along with investment information and contact numbers for company officials and the tombstone visionaries.
The Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, Boston Herald, and other newspapers, magazines, and radio and television stations picked up the story. Skaggs portrayed the company spokesperson and the marketing director for interviews. He eventually revealed the hoax in a press release saying it was a satire on "the corporate and church sponsored death care industry."
Skaggs also has convinced gullible journalists that he is, among many other things, a psychic lawyer, a gypsy activist fighting the use of the term "gypsy moth," and a doctor who treats baldness by transplanting scalps from cadavers. He made national news by dressing up as a priest pedaling the Portofess, a confessional booth mounted behind a tricycle ("Religion on the Move for People on the Go!"). He also appeared on television news programs as the proprietor of a canine brothel for sexually deprived pets -- the Cathouse for Dogs.
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