Pressing for Accuracy A Prankster's Media Mission

July 12 — Did you ever hear the story about the brothel for pets? Or the report on the business that sold apartments for fish? The stories had something in common beyond their wackiness: they were fictions created by master prankster Joey Skaggs.

In a campaign to push for more accurate reporting, Joey Skaggs has made a career of pulling the wool over the eyes of unsuspecting journalists.

Skaggs, a self-described satirist, has been yanking journalists' chains for more than three decades. He's fooled television networks, wire services, newspapers, magazines, and radio stations around the world. Good Morning America, CNN, and The Washington Post are among the big-time media organizations duped by Skaggs. Skaggs says his hoaxes, which he sets up with the help of volunteers and friends, serve a broader mission: highlighting the vulnerability of the press to disinformation and the public's unquestioning acceptance of whatever it reads in newspapers or watches on television. "I'm a satirist and I use the media as a medium," Skaggs said.

Skaggs has pulled off quite a few capers on his media mission. Using the alias "Dr. Joe Bones," he invented the "Fat Squad" to razz the media for the endless attention it pays to diet fads. Skaggs promoted the Fat Squad as a group of commandos that dieters could hire to keep them away from food. Skaggs said, "It is a joke about how everyone is hyping this weight loss thing. All these books, you know, and the diets and all this stuff. So I said, 'I will have commandos assigned to you 24 hours a day, and they'll beat the crap out of you if you go for that chocolate cake, if it's not on your diet.' "

To promote his Fat Squad, Skaggs simply sent a press release to wire services, which then sent the story to newsrooms across the country. "The Washington Post and The Philadelphia Enquirer both fell for this," Skaggs said. "Another journalist wanting to do their own personal spin on it will call you up, verify that they spoke to you, and then repackage, re-can and put out the same story in essence," he said.

And what newspapers print, television regularly copies. Skaggs, posing as Joe Bones, appeared on ABC's Good Morning America, promoting his Fat Squad. The show's former co-host David Hartman introduced the story by announcing that "six Fat Squad commandos are here now, this morning, live, to maintain tight security around our Good Morning America refrigerator." Hartman displayed a bit of skepticism, asking "Bones" if the Fat Squad was legitimate, but that was the extent of the challenge.

Skaggs said the media "want to believe these stories." He said reporters may be "a little suspicious," but in the end Skaggs said they think "this is such a good story, I don't want to blow it by investigating too much."

Before long, the Fat Squad had grabbed attention around the globe. Japanese television reporters came to New York and taped Skaggs as a Fat Squad commando trailing a client.

Skaggs also got a lot of coverage for that "cathouse" for dogs. The hook for the cathouse was an ad offering a night with "Fifi, the French poodle," and "Lady, the Tramp." "No weirdos, please," Skaggs wrote in his ad.

Skaggs put on quite a show to attract media attention. "I had 25 actors and 15 dogs, and I staged, for the media, a night in a bordello for dogs. The media ate it up," he said.

This time, the media responded with a bit more investigative vigor. Some launched consumer investigations. A New York television station reported that the ASPCA was investigating Skaggs. Another report included a veterinarian who condemned the pet brothel. And the New York State Health Department reportedly claimed that Skaggs' vet was unlicensed and that he may be using illegal drugs.

While media outlets share an eagerness to report on Skaggs' zany stories, they often resist admitting they've been conned.

Even more surprising, the television journalist who reported on Skaggs' cathouse for dogs won an Emmy Award for the feature.

Skaggs said the media brushed off his assertion that his report was a prank, suggesting he was only saying it was a hoax to avoid prosecution.

Good Morning America admitted that it had been fooled by Skaggs and apologized to its audience for airing its report on the Fat Squad.

Other media outlets, including The Washington Post and The Philadelphia Inquirer, have also admitted their errors after falling for a Skaggs prank, but not all of them. "They either trivialize it, dismiss me, attack me," Skaggs said.

Several newspapers and television stations fell for a gag in which Skaggs posed as a priest working out of a portable confessional booth outside the 1992 Democratic convention. He appeared on a television newscast as "Dr. Gregor," in a nod to Kafka's The Metamorphosis, hawking a cure-all drug made from cockroaches.

And Skaggs says he'll keep doing his hoaxes until the members of the media are more careful about what they report.

Portofess
July 1992, New York, New York

"If people can confess on Oprah, Phil and Geraldo, I don't see why they can't confess right here on Eighth Avenue." So said Father Anthony Joseph, a Dominican priest from San Bernadino who peddled a confessional booth mounted on the back of a tricycle to the site of the Democratic National Convention in New York City during July of 1992.

Portofess, as the confessional was called, provided religion on the move for people on the go. A manifesto handed out to passersby stated, "The Church must take a more aggressive stance. The Church must go where the sinners are!"

Father Joseph, (a.k.a. Joey Skaggs), had designed and, with the help of friends, built an ornate confessional booth. A tricycle was customed designed to haul the booth (i.e., solid rubber tires and special gearing for a quick getaway if necessary and no worries about a flat tire). He had purchased a full priest cassock from a mail order company in Connecticut. And, to cover his butt, had become a card carrying minister with a $36 mail order license from the American Fellowship Church.

The life of an itinerant priest is not an easy one -- two days in the hot sun peddling a confessional booth on a tricycle on New York City streets, in full priest garb! Once situated outside the convention hall, he was attacked by pro-abortion demonstrators, who pasted stickers on his body and on the booth. But, the New York police took Father Joseph under wing and offered him protection rarely afforded his alter ego Skaggs.

The Good Father was trying to make it easier for the politicians to free their souls by confessing their sins. Confessors approached the booth and entered. Most of them were actors, working with Skaggs to pull off the hoax. But eventually, the good Father had difficulty keeping the general public out of the confessional booth. "Come back when you're sober," he said. Or, "I'm on a break right now." Or, "I'm sorry, but I'm waiting for Ted Kennedy."

Thousands of journalists were in town for the convention. And, as it turned out, there was nothing much for them to do. So Father Joseph was swarmed by hungry mobs of reporters with cameras and questions, some of whom had interviewed Skaggs previously during other performances and should have known better. For example, Steve Powers of Fox TV News, who had covered Skaggs' Fish Condos as well as the expose of his Geraldo Hoax did not recognize Skaggs. He chased after the priest who was peddling away as fast as possible (fearing recognition). Once he caught the priest, he interviewed him as if he'd never seen him before.

Father Joseph thought it was a miracle. Portofess made the news on TV, radio and in hundreds of newspapers around the world. Father Joseph appeared on CNN, Fox TV, CBS and dozens and dozens of other news outlets including Reuters and Associate Press.

Finally a reporter called the Archdiocese in California to verify the Father's identity. Unable to do so, the piece was declared a hoax. And none to soon from the good Father's point of view. It's really hard finding a place to park a portable confessional booth in New York City.

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