Fake Newsroom | Monday, May 1, 2017

CHARLOTTE COTTON

10am Istanbul, May 1st, 2017
12am Cotati, May 1st, 2017
12am Van Nuys, May 1st, 2017

An influencer who refuses to be named has reported that the closing of the Fake Newsroom’s doors at the Minnesota Street Project was the result of a catalogue of oversights, and glaringly obvious failures by all three of its “revolving door” of Editors-in-Chief. The news has shocked and saddened the project’s fans and Insta pod, marking the hiatus of this now infamous three-week venture.

On Sunday night, a statement was read by a Fake Newsroom representative in front of the locked second floor offices clarifying that, "Our third and final Editor-in-Chief - Ms. Donovan - was hoping to galvanize a new wave of media scrutiny this evening” but due to, "A combination of the round-the-clock working patterns required to deliver daily fake news, a general lack of agreement about which time zone to work to, and the return of Ms. Dru’s latent cataplexy”, Fake Newsroom officials were forced to make the decision to suspend its activities. The representative also yelled, “Thanks for your concern!” to the random strangers waiting the obligatory San-Francisco-barista-minute for their bespoke coffee across the street.

According to some biographers, Dru Donovan’s multiple marriages and narcoleptic tendencies have been the “best kept secret[s]” in the anals of photo history, which became “hidden in plain sight” over the past week. Words from Ms. Donovan’s 1987 autobiography now seem unnervingly prophetic, "I have been supremely lucky in my life in that I have known great love, and of course, I have been the temporary custodian of an incredible and beautiful thing."

Fake Newsroom staff had rallied around Ms. Donovan’s aims for the project all week, ensuring that a nationally successful Draw The News event garnered an archive of newsworthy draftsmanship on April 27th. Re-enactments of pictures from the AP stream by a local English language class brought another layer to the fake news narrative, and lots of GIFs got made.

But, “Things got dark” on Tuesday April 25th when a local security guard found Ms. Donovan sleeping, “With her eyes open” on a bench in a nearby luxury loft sustainable wildlife reserve. Over the course of the next four days, the newsroom was regularly derailed by her temporary absences from the feverish 24/7 activities of the newsroom. Ms. Donovan consistently claimed that her odd behavior and actions were all part of performance art piece, convincing none of the Fake Newsroom officials who subcontracted a team on Thursday April 27th to undertake thorough searches of the entire building for the Editor-in-Chief in her bouts of narcoleptic absence. The newsroom staff started removing sharp objects and things that their soporific leader could accidentally fall onto – the office stapler, scissors, collapsible umbrella and a scary black glove were only brought back on Saturday April 29th by Ms. Donovan’s current husband as tools for the project’s ill-advised News Auction.

In the wake of the Fake Newsroom hiatus, many commentators are pointing out that Ms. Donovan’s tenure as Editor-in-Chief has gone, “Relatively smoothly” in comparison to her two maverick predecessors. Jim Goldberg’s disappearance on Sunday April 23rd has continued to unravel with rumors that his chicken Svengali – Pillow – organized a, “Coup over the coop” this week, renaming Goldberg’s eco wonderland as the Death Star. Goldberg’s only presence over the past eight days has been virtual, with his development of a subscription-based website jug.se (derived from Goldberg’s initials) with the slogan, “Driving into the future using a rearview mirror”. Jug.se hit its subscriber’s in-box on Thursdays with tips including, “Police your thoughts”, “Jim’s guide to involuntary perceptions” and, “Eliminate arbitrary foods.” This week nuggets of Goldbergian wisdom have also included kabbalah healing in the chicken community, and a graphic regimen for detoxifying Wellington boots. Steve Fowler, Goldberg’s publicist, responded to the deluge of three jug.se website enquiries by e-mail, saying that it would be, “immature” to discuss his client’s virtual lifestyle ventures.

But all of Goldberg’s missteps seem like a quaint kind of muddle scattered on the tip of a gigantic iceberg of blunders created by the landscape gardener and former Editor-in-Chief Jason Fulford.

Fulford’s reputation is undoubtedly in tatters as stories of his failed attempt to create the startup incubator, the Fake Fake Newsroom Creative Agency LLC, and his involvement in a hostile takeover bid of the newsroom. “His blend of financial devil-may-care, bizarre showmanship, and unfettered inner teenager was the undoing of Fake Newsroom” according to one handwritten note left in the project’s abandoned offices today. According to another source, barrow-boy Fulford’s orchestration of www.fakenewsroom.org‘s banner advertising that, “Confused the hell out of everyone” was a genuine attempt to garner compatible advertisers and revenue streams to the site and lure potential clients to his creative agency’s mission, “To project a global message of unity, peace and understanding”. An anonymous source who had been present at one of Fulford’s presentations to prospective on-line clients admitted they hadn’t, “Necessarily picked up on the symbolism and imagery used in the Millennial-Speak ads” but thought that they, “Looked really bae-worthy”. Another attendee called Fulford’s pitch, “The most awful piece of promotional material I've seen in the last several months, if not years” and had, “Expect[ed] a firing before happy hour.”

The most merciless and swift criticism of Fulford’s unrealistic yet - for at least some - well-intended vision for the Fake Newsroom took the form of a hostile takeover bid by the secretive Clatworthy Colorviews media empire, best known for it’s consciously opaque billboard campaigns, and its cruel approach to corporate poison pills and golden parachutes. “Things don’t look good for Donovan, Goldberg, and Fulford – If I were them, I’d run. Very fast.” At the time of this fake press release, Clatworthy Colorviews’ majority shareholders Kelly Sultan and Mike Mandel were unavailable for comment but fuelled speculation after they were sighted high-fiving and belly laughing in the vicinity of the abandoned Fake Newsroom. Amidst the storm of yesterday’s news swirling around Minnesota Street, the opening lines of the original 1983 MATRIX/Berkeley Newsroom pamphlet remain true. “The myth of the photograph as a perfect analogue of reality persists to this day.”

For further information, contact Pillow@fakenewsroom.org

[Pho­to: Ruby Gold­berg]


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