Evelyn Nussenbaum

This week hasn't been a good one for big journalism. First we had news that the Los Angeles Times got tricked into falsely accusing Sean "Diddy" Combs of complicity to murder, now comes news of another paper getting snookered in a desperate quest to be cool.

Our story begins in 1987 with 80s pop singer Rick Astley and his song "Never Gonna Give You Up." Back in the day, the song was a worldwide #1 hit. Once the 90s began Astley's popularity declined until a few years ago when "Never Gonna" acquired a life of its own on the internet thanks to the practice of "Rick Rolling," a prank web users play on each other to mischeviously post a link allegedly relevant to the topic at hand which is in reality a link to Astley's cheesy video.

Flash forward to this past Monday. On that day, New York Times reporter Evelyn Nussenbaum gets word that a Washington state college basketball game has devolved into an impromptu Rick Astley concert based on the "Rick Rolling" prank. The proof? A video posted on the YouTube page of a web video comedian named Paul "PauLy" Fisher.