Kimmel Olympic ‘wolf’ prank reveals disturbing gullibility of media

In the age of the 24-hour news cycle, most media outlets place “being first” above “being right” on their list of priorities. As a result, many sources of news compromise the quality of their work in the rush to get their story out.

Twitter has become a source for many media outlets on both sides of the political aisle. There are near-weekly “pranks,” claiming that beloved celebrities have passed away, the most recent “victim” being Bill Nye the Science Guy.

The Sochi Olympic games were fraught with issues ranging from security scares to bathroom mishaps. The reported $50 billion that was spent by the Russian government in preparation for the games successfully lined the pockets of those receiving the sweetheart contracts, while leaving the living situation of the athletes pretty dismal.

So it shouldn’t be a surprise that when the “news” broke of a wolf roaming the halls of some athletic quarters in the Olympic Village, the popular news media jumped all over it. 

That night on the late show Jimmy Kimmel Live, the eponymous host aired the rest of the story:

As revealed in this clip (watch the whole thing, it’s worth the 8 minutes), the whole scheme was a comedic conspiracy between Kimmel’s crew and US Olympic luger Kate Hansen.

Hansen sent pictures of the dorm to Kimmel and they recreated a set that looked like the athletic dorm, and let an American Wolf named Rugby amble through while someone videoed the convincing prank.

Hansen agreed to let Kimmel post the shortened video on her twitter, and the rest is history.

The media’s willingness to grab onto this story without any additional fact-checking should be a comical jolt to reality for their audience. This isn’t a liberal or conservative problem. Fox News was just as guilty as MSNBC, as ESPN, as CNN.

Though in this instance it was just a harmless prank that resulted in nothing more than a few laughs — and possibly an Olympic gold medal for pranking — it should serve as a reminder not to believe everything that is reported as news.

Elizabeth BeShears is the Executive Director of Alabama Citizens for Media Accountability, a non-profit watchdog group dedicated to exposing bias in the Alabama and national media.