How ManCrunch.com Bamboozled the Media

Contributed by: Lyndon Evans

Have a seat by the campfire boys and girls as I tell you a tale about how one lovely lady and her co-horts in Canada took just about every news organization and a multitude of websites and blogs in the US and around the world for a ride to promote a “dating website” by taking advantage of the outrage over CBS Television accepting an ad from Focus On The Family for the Super Bowl.

It all started this past Thursday, January 28 when FOX News posted this story on their website written by Hollie McKay, which reads in part, After days of deliberations on whether to run a controversial Super Bowl ad from gay dating site ManCrunch.com, CBS has not yet reached a decision.

For those who may not have been following this great “fiasco of journalism”, the story refers to a website called Man Crunch, “Where Many Many Many Men Come Out to Play”, and how the owners of the website were trying to buy ad time from CBS for the Super Bowl.

Well boys and girls, as they say about a YouTube video, the story went viral. New articles with links to the Fox News story started popping up the same day on mainstream websites such as The Huffington Post, as well as LGBT blogs and websites, among the first was JMG.

Now, what a great many of the postings on blogs and websites have in common aside to a reference to the Fox News story, CBS and Man Crunch, is the “contradiction” by CBS to accept an ad from Focus On The Family, an organization which among other things is anti-gay, and as will end up happening on the 29th, CBS rejecting the ad from Man Crunch.

On Friday the 29th, the story hit, via a tweet from CNBC’s Darren Rovellno, that CBS would not accept the Man Crunch ad and again that story went viral too, this time with the likes of the NY Daily News, the New York Post, CNN and even later Friday evening on the CBS News website, which uses a source for their story, about their own company mind you, The Hollywood Reporter.

Before we break out the marshmallows for roasting and hearing the second part to our tale, I must tell you this.

When this writer first starting coming across the story on Thursday and reading the content of the FOX News article, the built in journalist and former CBS employee antenna went up and I figured something was afoot and not correct, which is why until this posting, there has been no mention of CBS/Man Crunch.

What lead me to that observation if you will, and decided not to join the fray of the many, was the information regarding CBS and Man Crunch, was information provided by Man Crunch. Every time “a CBS rep” was written it was done so with no name. Also in some of the articles there was an unsettling contradiction in what CBS was purported to be saying and Man Crunch’s statements and offering of information.

Even the “statement from CBS” as to why the ad would not be accepted was information provided by Man Crunch and again with no names of CBS spokesman or representatives. So needless to say the whole thing didn’t sit right and I opted not to add this blog to the ever growing media taking this all in.

Break out the marshmallows, and get the second part at: Focus On The Rainbow!