Just a quick report from the front lines of websites posing as fake news organizations in order to scam innocent people. Film Editor Erik Henriksen was happily perusing this USA Today article about an Abu Dhabi hotel constructing a $11 million Christmas tree and gold bar vending machine (what?) when he noticed this weird little notice on this side of the site:

Which leads you to this website called News Reports 1 with an article headlined, “Can $97 Really Turn Into $6795? We Investigated…”
It’s not until you get to the very bottom of the page in tiny gray print on a gray background that there’s a disclaimer, “We are not affiliated in any way with any news organization. This is an advertisement for Home Revenue System.”
It’s hard enough to parse out what’s a legitimate news site online, without skeezy companies trying to disguise their websites as TV news.


What I learned from this whole experience is that yes, Portland is a total scam.
Just as bad as cheap, profit-driven aggregators like this:
http://theportlander.com/
“It’s hard enough to parse out what’s a legitimate news site online, without skeezy companies trying to disguise their websites as TV news.”
No it’s not; unless you’re an old person or missing part of your brain
Can $97 Really Turn Into $67.95? Send me $29.05 and find out!
The lesson here is that you shouldn’t read USA Today.
Portland mom loses 87 pounds and whitens her teeth with this one weird tip, Newschannel 7 reports.