Tucson Station Falls for Hoax Lawsuit, Other Media Outlets Follow

It appears that KOLD in Tucson fell for a hoax and then they got other media outlets to fall for it as well. 

Yesterday, a number news outlets, including Foxnews.com, picked up on the KOLD report about Jared Lee Loughner, the man who shot Gabrielle Giffords in 2011, suing the former congresswoman and the federal government for $25 million.

When KOLD first reported the story on their website, the headline read, "Loughner suing Giffords, federal government for $25 million.” It was updated at 12:30 a.m. on Thursdday and the headline was changed to“Loughner lawsuit against Giffords, federal government could be hoax.”

KOLD's story appears to have been completely rewritten and now provides evidence why the lawsuit is likely a hoax.

CBS News also picked up the story from their affiliate and posted on their website, but hen deleted the article without a trace. It later published a second article reporting that the lawsuit could be a hoax.

A number of TV news people talked about the story on Twitter, not knowing the story was fake. 

Although KOLD has edited the story a number of times, they never admitted to their original story being so wrong. 

H/T Politico