Fake NY Times Declares "IRAQ WAR ENDS"

A group of liberal pranksters created a fake issue of the New York Times with a wide headline that declares "Iraq War Ends". For those who missed the joke, the realistic-looking paper was dated July 4, 2009, and came with a weather forecast calling for "recent gloom passing ... strong leftward winds."

The Times's City Room blog writes:

In an elaborate hoax, pranksters distributed thousands of free copies of a spoof edition of The New York Times on Wednesday morning at busy subway stations around the city, including Grand Central Terminal, Washington and Union Squares, the 14th and 23rd Street stations along Eighth Avenue, and Pacific Street in Brooklyn, among others.

The spurious 14-page papers — with a headline "IRAQ WAR ENDS" — surprised commuters, many of whom took the free copies thinking they were legitimate.

The paper is dated July 4, 2009, and imagines a liberal utopia of national health care, a rebuilt economy, progressive taxation, a national oil fund to study climate change, and other goals of progressive politics.

The hoax was accompanied by a Web site that mimics the look of The Times’s real Web site. A page of the spoof site contained links to dozens of progressive organizations, which were also listed in the print edition.