Washington gets real fake newspaper

Fake editions of The Washington Post claiming that President Donald Trump was leaving office were handed out yesterday morning at multiple locations in Washington, D.C.

The print papers – dated May 1, 2019, and looking strikingly similar to actual copies of The Post – were filled with anti-Trump stories, which also appeared on a website that mimicked the official Post site. The Post’s PR department released a statement: ‘‘There are fake print editions of The Washington Post being distributed around downtown DC, and we are aware of a website attempting to mimic The Post’s. They are not Post products, and we are looking into this.’’

Later yesterday, a group that describes itself as a ‘‘trickster activist collective’’ called the Yes Men said it produced the bogus newspapers and website.

Under the headline ‘‘Unpresidented,’’ the fake newspaper’s lead story said Trump had left a resignation message on a napkin in the Oval Office and left Washington for Yalta, the Crimean resort that was the site of a meeting of Allied leaders during World War II.

The false story also reported that his abrupt departure was prompted by ‘‘massive women-led protests’’ around the country, suggesting that the stunt was a promotion for a planned women’s march on Saturday.

Jacques Servin, who uses the pseudonym Andy Bichlbaum, said he is one of the co-founders of the Yes Men and that the paper was intended to offer the ‘‘grassroots movement’’ ideas for how to support the impeachment of Trump. ‘‘The idea was a newspaper from the future and how we got there – like a roadmap for activists,’’ he said.

The print and digital newspapers cost about US$40,000 (NZ$59,000), Servin said, adding that US$36,000 was raised from the organisation’s mailing list. They printed 25,000 copies, and he estimated 10,000 of the papers were distributed.

He said the group, which is a collaboration between Servin and others, including author-activists Onnesha Roychoudhuri and L.A. Kauffman, practices ‘‘clowny activism.’’ Several documentaries chronicle the collective’s pranks.

They put together a similarly fake copy of the New York Times in 2008. That fake edition, which came out after the election of President Barack Obama, had stories depicting liberal activists putting pressure on the new administration. For more than 20 years they have pretended to represent official groups, such as the World Trade Organisation and U.S. Chamber of Commerce, at phony news conferences.