My Failed Prank on CNN, With John Freyer

It wasn't a complete failure, but I did not get the chance to launch into an uncensored rant on CNN's live broadcast, as I was hoping. But our prank succeeded in other ways, as I'll explain below.

"I've covered a lot of stories, and never have I run across anything like this. This is a story that's been developing while we've been on the air, and it's about us!" Click here or on the image above to see news coverage.

This requires a little back story, which I'll review quickly. In 2000, my friend John Freyer began selling off all his material possessions on the internet auction site eBay, and he named his project AllMyLifeForSale, which spawned a website and, later, a book -- as well as a career exploring the social impact of the secondhand economy.

CNN called John to be on a morning news program that would broadcast live on August 19, 2001. We decided to disrupt a live CNN broadcast (the crew had already shot b-roll footage that would accompany John's voice, which would be phoned in), by switching identities. Midway through the interview I was to break character and lay out my critique of the state of consolidated, homogenized news media.

But we were also interested in how well CNN would fact check a story that focused on the Internet, so the day before the interview John posted on his blog an explicit explanation of what we planned to do during the live broadcast:

...So when CNN contacted me this week about AMLFS I was in a quandary about what to do... the project is over... the whole point of talking to BIG MEDIA was to get the items that were up for auction dispersed to as many different types of people as possible. Without the things on auction, all I would get out of it would be a short interview where they would ask me about my two front teeth and my underwear. It was far from a critical look at what the hell AMLFS was all about... But I agreed to the interview... I have a plan...

My friend Kembrew was at the fry-o-rama too and he has been watching my project progress. He too feels that the consolidation of media is a bad thing... that it homogenizes news coverage ... that you have to hear about he guy selling his life on the Internet day after day after day... that it leads to the elimination of investigative reporting in an effort to increase profits and to avoid law suits. And so on... So even though the selling part of AMLFS is over I decided that I would sell him the opportunity to be interviewed on CNN tomorrow morning.

He paid me $100 (that's a lot of gas, unless Exxon-Mobil starts to raise its prices again) for the opportunity to be me for the five minute interview. I have no idea what he will say but talking to the media live was always a little nerve racking anyways... I'm going to sleep in....

Ohh and... SHHHHH if they find out they will cancel the interview...

Can you keep a secret?

So the secret was out, and unfortunately for CNN, they didn't discover this until 10 minutes before we were to go live. I should give CNN a T for Trying, even if they did end up reading the previous day's blog only minutes before we were to go live (you can read John's coverage of this event here). Not surprisingly, the producers were PISSED. I could hear them yelling at John while he held the phone away from his ear. The best part was the fact that we got to watch how CNN had to alter its programming at the last minute -- all from our command center in Iowa City. CNN scrambled to recycle a segment that it had run earlier, after which they came clean to the audience and finally acknowledged our ruse on the air. (However, they stated that I paid John $100 to represent him, which wasn't true. It was just something that we made up ... something that CNN parroted on a national broadcast. That happens all the time.)

The male anchor concluded by saying, "We've had heroes, we've had heroines, and now what? A Schmuck?"

One of the anchors sitting at his side exclaimed, "That's all it takes to get on CNN? Just a hundred bucks?"

Click here or on the image above to see news coverage.