The New York Times
It was, as TMZ said dramatically in a headline on Monday morning, “The J.F.K. Photo That Could Have Changed History.” Could have–if it had been a real photo.
Hours after the popular celebrity news Web site published a photo that it said “appears to show John F. Kennedy on a boat filled with naked women,” one of its corporate siblings, The Smoking Gun, revealed that TMZ had been duped.
The photo that TMZ called exclusive was, it turned out, featured in a Playboy magazine photo spread in 1967, four years after Mr. Kennedy was assassinated. The Smoking Gun called it a “colossal screw-up” by TMZ.
TMZ is owned by Warner Brothers, and The Smoking Gun is owned by Turner. Both are units of Time Warner.
TMZ acknowledged in a subsequent article on Monday afternoon that the photo was “a fake.” More…