Friday, May 18, 2007

The Chronicle: Hacked or What?

I'm reading online Duke’s student newspaper, The Chronicle, and I come to:

BRODHEAD NAMED AMBASSADOR TO ZIMBABWE BY BUSH
Wow! I hadn’t heard about that.

Was that a real news report or did someone(s) hack into The Chronicle and post a story to make President Brodhead look even worse than he already does?

Since the report was on The Chronicle’s message board, we need to be a very skeptical.

Chronicle message board reports often prove to be as false as things we hear from President Brodhead himself and many of his faculty Group of 88 colleagues.

On the other hand, The Chronicle gave the report a large, seperate subject head as you'll see if you go here.

What’s more, the report has been up for more than five hours.

If the report is a fake, wouldn't The Chronicle, whose editors have never criticized Brodhead's refusal last spring to meet with the parents of the lacrosse players or questioned his silence when Reade Seligmann was subjected to death threats, have “pulled” the report?

At least that’s what I think. And that’s what leads me to pass on to you what The Chronicle is passing on to its readers tonight.

From The Chronicle Message Board:
Due to his almost unlimited admiration for the Brodhead's handling of the Duke lacrosse team crisis, George Bush has nominated the leader of Duke University as America's ambassador to Zimbabwe.
"It was the only quick way to get [him] outta here!" Bush is reported to have said when he thought microphones had been turned off.

Brodhead, who, as everyone knows is immune to any kind of criticism, remained standing next to the President with a goofy smile on his face, while holding a miniature flag of Zimbabwe in his left hand. "I'm only too aware that Zimbabwe has its critics," Brodhead spoke, "but it's an exemplar of diversity."

When asked about the seizure of white owned land by Mugabe's thugs, Brodhead intoned," what goes around comes around and I'm certain it was, somehow, all our fault."…
Now I want to say again I’m very skeptical of this report, especially the part about Brodhead “standing next to the President with a goofy smile of his face, while holding a miniature flag of Zimbabwe in his left hand.”

That can't be true. Brodhead is right-handed.

On the other hand (No word play intended.), The Chronicle is standing by the story and has not removed it from its site.

What to do?

JinC reports. You decide

5 comments:

DukeEgr93 said...

ROTFLMAO - but it's not a report. It, like about 99% of the message board contents for the Chronicle, is pure crud... I even received an e-mail one time from a member of the Chronicle staff that patrolling the threads would leave them open to more chance of potential litigation than just leaving it open.

Though I have *never* received a good explanation that a post about the Chronicle editorial board's choice to endorse a candidate with clear ties to the Chronicle was removed. See this for details

Anonymous said...

What did Mugabe do to deserve this?? Cruel and unusual to be sure.

Anonymous said...

It has to be a joke.

Anonymous said...

Like nearly all of the comments on the Chronicle message board, the story is obviously a joke.

You don't have to hack in to post a new message on the boards, anyone with a computer can post whatever they want to.

Anonymous said...

One of my favorite Chronicle Message Board posts was:
"Durham Police Issue Report Written By The Durham Police On The Investigation Conducted By The Durham Police Of The Work Of The Durham Police"