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Article: Fooled by the media.(April Fool's Day)

Article from:
Contemporary Review
Article date:
April 1, 1999
Author:
Copyright

Geoffrey Humphrys

We should rub the sleep from our eyes quickly on Thursday, April 1, if there are schoolchildren in the home. They mainly keep the April fool customs alive today, but some adults never grow too old for practical jokes. So much so that with the media entering into the spirit of the day, British newspaper, radio and television pranks have produced April fools by the million.

The classic form of April fool hoax is to present some improbable situation in such a convincing manner that people fall for it on the spur of the moment, then later cannot understand why they did so.

April fooling was launched into the mass media age in 1957 ...

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