Fake Washington Post Newspapers Handed Out In Multiple Areas In DC

WASHINGTON, DC (WJZ) — Some DC residents were handed some actual fake news Wednesday morning.

A mysterious round of fake editions of the Washington Post was handed out at multiple locations in the D.C. area, where in lieu of the Post’s usual tagline, “Democracy Dies In Darkness,” the phrase “Democracy Awakens in Action” appeared at the top.

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The paper’s lead headline: “Unpresidented: Trump Hastily Departs White House, Ending Crisis,”

The editions claimed that President Trump was leaving office. The print papers, dated May 1, 2019, were filled with anti-Trump stories, also appearing on a website that mimicked the official Washington Post website.

The Washington Post tweeted out a story explaining fake editions of the newspaper had been passed out at multiple locations in the D.C. area Wednesday.

The Post’s PR team released a statement on Twitter:

Later Wednesday morning, a group called the “Yes Men” said it produced the fake newspapers and website.

Under the headline, “Unpresidented,” the fake paper’s lead story said Trump had left a resignation message on a napkin in the Oval Office and left DC for Yalta, the Crimean resort that was the site of a meeting of Allied leaders during World War II.

The website’s most recent blog post read the headline: “Trump is over- if you want it,”

A statement posted online by the Yes Men said author Onnesha Roychoudhuri created the paper with author L.A. Kauffman.

“The story this paper tells is more reasonable than our current reality,” says author Onnesha Roychoudhuri, who created the paper together with author L.A. Kauffman and trickster activist collective the Yes Men. “And it’s anything but far-fetched. We’re already seeing unprecedented levels of protest and resistance. Now we just need to ask ourselves: What’s next? This paper offers a blueprint to help us reclaim our democracy.”

He tweeted a picture of himself passing out copies of the “special edition” earlier Wednesday.

Code Pink, a liberal activist group, posted a video on Facebook of the founder, Medea Benjamin, also passing out copies of the paper

Washington Post readers and Twitter users took to their timelines to react to the fake news outbreak:

Some scoffed at the stunt, using it to criticize the media in general.