All four Atlanta stations covered a fake protest over a potential Justin Bieber move to Atlanta’s Buckhead neighborhood Monday morning. The prank was organized by a local radio station that sent six of its interns to act as “protestors.”
Despite the fact that only a handful of people participated, the protest was covered extensively on the local stations’ morning newscasts. CBS affiliate WGCL, ABC affiliate WSB and Fox-owned WAGA all had reporters on the scene, and NBC affiliate WXIA had video from the protest during the morning newscast.
“We just think that Justin Bieber is a menace. He doesn’t really belong with the antics that he’s done — egging people’s houses, drag racing, having drugs, being arrested. We just don’t need that in our neighborhood,” one protestor told WGCL’s Rebekka Schram.
The hoax was organized by “The Regular Guys,” a Rock 100.5 radio show that created a fake “Buckhead Neighborhood Coalition” Facebook page. According to host Larry Wachs, the prank was covered by 33 news outlets and generated more than 45,000 news stories.