AP Falls for Hoax About GE Taxes

The Yes Men—the satirical duo that has pranked major corporations including BP, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Dow Chemical—can add two new scalps to its count: GE and the AP. Wednesday morning, they issued a press release purporting to be from GE, saying that the company, which has been under fire for using loopholes to avoid paying corporate taxes, had decided to pay the government $3.2 billion. The release quoted CEO Jeffrey Immelt as saying, “We want the public to know that we’ve heard them, and that we know many Americans are going through tough times.” Of course, it wasn’t real—but they fooled plenty of people, including the Associated Press, which published an article on the news.