Anatomy of a hoax, updated

For two years, student reporters at the Daily Egyptian have been printing emails from a little girl named Kodee Kennings, whose father was a soldier in Iraq. When Kodee's dad died, they went to his memorial service. But first they called the Chicago Tribune to tell them about the remarkable story of the orphaned girl and her deceased father.

And then the story began to fall apart. There was no Kodee Kennings. No dad in Iraq. Instead, the whole saga came from the fevered brain of a former student who went to far as to hire actors to play Kodee and her dad.

Read the whole thing. More here, here and here.

H/T: Tim Blair.

UPDATE: WWOWD? KaneCitizen looks at this story and muses about Orson Welles, forgeries and the coverage of the war.

Media coverage of the war, from Cindy Sheehan to the 16 words, certainly has a bearing on this story. Proponents of the war have been fighting the MSM version of the story since before we invaded Iraq. Then we have this story. The students, it seems, were duped. But since the Tribune reporters were able to figure out that the story was fake within hours, why didn't the students? Because they wanted to believe it? It was too good to check?

And what about the hoaxster herself? Sounds like she wanted attention. But she also implicated the student reporter who first covered the story. Could be she knew what he wanted to hear.