So today, this happened: Bloomberg News fell for a fake news story originally posted at one of those awful sites that plays on confirmation bias to circulate seemingly genuine stories and generate clicks for them: RETRACTED: Nancy Reagan Gives Her Endorsement to … Hillary Clinton? - Bloomberg Politics.

There’s now a notice at the top of the article:

This story has been retracted. We fell for a hoax. Apologies.

Here’s a screenshot of the original, before the retraction:

Everyone needs to stop falling for the click-bait hoaxes posted at sites like NationalReport [dot] net. What they’re doing isn’t “satire,” it’s deception for profit. And note that Bloomberg writer Emily Greenhouse says she originally found the fake story at right wing sewer Drudge Report. Lovely.

Hopefully, this will be a learning experience for all involved.

(h/t: @Gus_802)

But wait — the fail gets even more absurd, because Greenhouse apparently found the story at a fake Drudge Report (donotlink.com). So it was a double fake. Fakes all the way down!

I don’t mean to be overly harsh on Ms Greenhouse, by the way; these fake news sites cleverly disguise their hoaxes by making them seem just credible enough to be genuine. Greenhouse isn’t the first to be tricked by this money-making ploy and she probably won’t be the last.