Yes Men - New York Post: Special Edition! (2009)

UPDATE: added GRITtv and WNYC coverage to the bottom of the post.

Following closely their last awesome prank on the New York Times, this time it’s the rag known as the “New York Post,” and it’s packed full of revelatory news, none of which is accurate in the slightest, of course.

Playing in theaters starting today (U.S.) and tomorrow (world wide) is the related film The Age of Stupid. Here is the trailer.

LOOK: The Age of Stupid | GOOD - Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

via Good Magazine: Look: the Age of Stupid

The Age of Stupid, which features music by Radiohead and Depeche Mode and includes documentary footage filmed in America, the United Kingdom, India, Nigeria, Iraq, Jordan, and The Alps, premieres today in New York City and Canada, and tomorrow in 75 countries around the world. Residents of every other country in the world will be able to watch the film online for free here for the next month. It’s no coincidence that the film’s release comes just days before the UN General Assembly’s session on climate change, as the filmmaker hopes it can catalyze the groundswell necessary to motivate people toward real and sweeping action. From the looks of the trailer, it just might.

And finally in October their new film “The Yes Men Fix the World” will be released. Here’s the official trailer.

Yes Men Get Desperate | New York Post - Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

“Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno were spotted yesterday on Lafayette Street, cajoling passers-by to go see their new climate-change epic The Yes Men Fix the World, opening at the Film Forum Theater on Houston Street October 7. The two notorious troublemakers sneak into corporate events disguised as captains of industry and pull off the funniest pranks known to (Yes) Man. Sources say they’re hitting the streets because they don’t have an advertising budget. Good luck, guys! Maybe if you pretend to be Bono people will come see your show (see Page Six).”

GRITtv: The Yes Men Create A(nother) Stir - Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

“The Yes Men confused and amused morning commuters in New York City with their mock version of the New York Post featuring the massive headline : We’re Screwed. Their new movie, The Yes Men Fix The World, is said to be one part rousing manifesto and two parts screwball comedy. Its worldwide premiere next month will be in New York, New Orleans, and Bhopal, India. And if you’re engaging in corporate shenanigans of the best kind, send us a link to your video at grittv@grittv.org”

via http://blip.tv/file/2633892

Yes Men and the New York Post - Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

WNYC’s Arun Venugopal spent the day with the Yes Men as they spread the word about an environmental catastrophe that could hit New York City.

<embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/nhq8YRxSVYE&autoplay=&fs=1&showinfo=0&showsearch=0&rel=0&” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” wmode=”opaque” width=”480” height=”415” id=”myytplayer”></embed>      <div style=”font-size:0.9em;”>       <a href=”/watch/2300999-yes-men-and-the-new-york-post”>Yes Men and the New York Post</a> - Watch more <a href=”http://vodpod.com”>Videos</a> at Vodpod.</div>

Yes Men - New York Times: Special Edition! (2008)

Note: From the archives: November, 2008

This morning, residents of the Big Apple were treated to 1.2 million copies of a free newspaper:

Several details have changed over the day, such as the Web address. The site has been hammered today, but things should be settling down.

New York Times “Special Edition” site.

The date of this prank was pushed back so as to not interfere with the election. As I’ve mentioned before, The Yes Men are available for hire as educators in media literacy.

As always, this prank was executed with professionalism and flair. An excerpt:

Court Indicts Bush on High Treason Charge

By Bart Garzon 
Published: July 4th, 2009

WASHINGTON (AP) — George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States, was indicted Monday on charges of high treason. The charges, filed by Attorney General Russ Feingold late in the evening, allege that Mr. Bush, knowing full well that Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction, falsified information in order to pursue the disastrous Iraq War. (See “U.S. Knew No W.M.D.s in Iraq,” on Page A1.) 

The former President appeared perturbed by his own charges against him. (GAVIN BELLOWS/BOSTON GLOBE)

Laura Flanders interviews The Yes Me (2008) - Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

Planet Earthling - Galactic Terrorists or Roguish Evolutionary Dunces?

Planet Earthling:

Galactic Terrorists or Roguish Evolutionary Dunces?
  

GALACTIC NEWS BULLETIN

by Galactic News correspondent 34.232.490.901 [Richard Walker]

filed at 230.908.435.1200 Galactic Mean Time [May 25, “Towel day”]

dedicated to Douglas Adams, author of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”

SYNOPSIS

Alarming information feeds from the far reaches of a remote galaxy [GID ZEWEUWQQI a.k.a. Sleeping Satanic Spirals] indicate activities which call for immediate deployment of counter-insurgency demolition forces [TCV Galactic Planetary Decree 54.4.8]

It seems inevitable that once these Earthling Religious Fanatics discover the provable absence of a Divine Dictator [by finding a huge, glowing suicide note] they will take violent action. Since their most stable civilizations [term used loosely here] are based on mutually exclusive monodic godheads, it is only a matter of time before the big three join forces and perpetrate terrorism on their little corner of the universe, in the name of all three one and only Gods whose existence they have just disproved.

They will undoubtedly realize that their cluster’s star [a yellow youngster, SID YY131009] is the most powerful potential weapon within their grasp. This reporter need not remind Galactic News readers that the technology required to initiate a stellar collapse and novation sequence is all over the galactic infoplane, and more to the point, is self-evident soon after a pretelligent species starts connecting sub-atomic dots with silly-string theories.

All of the indicators for a stellar suicide bomb are in place. It is our duty to protect our Galactic Hinterlands from further de-volutionary decline and to safeguard their place as the vacation getaway of galactic choice. It would be most upsetting to have a new Atomic Streamliner damaged on its maiden voyage as bits of EarthStar zing past the StreamProtect anti-matter agent. No-one wants to see his insurance premiums rise to cover this risk, regardless.

Spot.us - Community Funded Reporting

Community Funded Reporting

About David Cohn, Spot.us Director:

David Cohn - Bay Area - member since October 11, 2008

http://www.digidave.org

David has shown interest in Gov’t + Politics, Cultural Diversity, Environment

---

About David

I have been working in journalism since college. You can browse my work history and samples for more.

As for me personally. I’m a bit of a geek, but I enjoy every minute of every day working on Spot.Us. I’m ready to build this website out into something very exciting.

All I want to know is… who’s coming with me?

Work History

---

Freelance Writer

I have freelanced for Wired, Seed Magazine, Columbia Journalism Review, the New York Times and more.

Director of Distributed Reporting

I worked with Jay Rosen on NewAssignment.Net. As such, I worked on the following projects: NewAssignment.net (the blog), Assignment Zero, Beat Blogging, OffTheBus.net and others.

Director

I received a grant from the Knight Foundation to build Spot.Us. I’m loving every minute of it.

Cohn recently wrote a “half year report:”

It has been a year since Spot.Us was officially announced as a project and six months since our website launched. So it is time to reflect back on what we have accomplished, where we have succeeded and failed. It is amazing what can happen in six months!

It is far easier to look at one’s own project, their baby, and gleefully point out where it has surpassed expectations. Don’t worry, I will probably do that in this post. At the same time, however, I feel an obligation, perhaps with an extra critical eye, to point out where it can improve. This post will include the good, the bad and the ugly.

Why? The concept of “community funded reporting,” “community supported journalism,” whatever you want to call it – is FAR larger than Spot.Us. We are building an open source CMS so others can join us easily (Join our Google Group for discussion) but as we proved before our launch – anyone can do this with just a wiki. With that in mind – it is important for Spot.Us to convey the lessons we’ve learned. Strategies trump technology any day of the week.

via State of the Spot – Half a Year Since Launch « Spot Us – “Community Funded Reporting”.

 

Interview with David Cohn - the future of investigative journalism « by John Welsh, These Digital Times

[about John Welsh]

My Spot.us profile

One of the early pitches I helped fund was the Oscar Grant story:

Oscar Grant and Oakland’s Faultline

My email spam folder contained this note from Cohn regarding the Oscar Grant reporter, who is M.I.A.

It is with a heavy heart that I write this note. Recently in a six month view of Spot.Us I noted that we were dealing with a reporter that had gone missing in action.

More Selective in the reporters: In the beginning Spot.Us let anyone create pitches and we would take them down if they proved unresponsive or raised any red flags. While we still want to be inclusive (proof of it in this pitch from two high school students) we are putting reporters through a slightly more rigorous screening process before pitches go up.

Wonder why: Yes – we got burned. One reporter who we successfully funded has gone M.I.A. ….

Unfortunately it was a story you wanted to see produced: A short documentary on Oscar Grant. The reporter was responsive in the beginning but as you might have gathered from the silence and limited updates, has done little since being funded, despite our repeated efforts to get something from him. While the reporter hasn’t “made off with the money” (we don’t pay reporters until they deliver something) I am saddened that the initial video documentary on Oscar Grant’s death won’t be produced. It continues to be an important story.

I cannot apologize enough for this. In the end - these things do happen. Every industry can become a victim of folks who just don’t follow through, but you deserve better and in the future Spot.Us is putting reporters through a more rigorous background check.

Moving forward: We have a new pitch that is related to police violence in Oakland that will touch on Oscar Grant’s shooting as well as other acts of violence in the community.

http://spot.us/pitches/202
“Civilian Oversight of Police in Oakland - Breaking the Wall of Silence.”

This sort of community funded journalism can help foster better habits and accountability in the community. For example, I was not aware of the “International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement” before this; when they led the “Lovelle Mixon protest,” I connected the dots and wrote this warning for the benefit of reporters and Bay area residents.

Interview with David Cohn

Update on 20090522 at 16:42 by richardwalker

Followed up after Oscar Grant reporter went M.I.A. and the notice was lost amidst spam.