Alexis Debat

Looks like fauxtography isn't the only thing that the newswires and other media outlets get taken in by these days. Here we have the AP, ABC and other news agencies getting fooled by Alexis Debat, a "news consultant" who has not only faked interviewing various people in the news but has also faked his own education and background. And he's been doing it for years with his writing serving as the main source for some of the AP's and ABC's stories. He even somehow got a job with the Nixon Center, a political think tank in D.C. which is a foreign policy advisory organization with a leaning toward the "realpolitik" or pragmatist view of foreign relations.

The AP reports on how they and ABC as well as a French political journal called Politique Internationale were taken in by the fanciful work of Debat.