‘Those things are not happening’
Website spreads phony Bklyn development news
BY BEN BRACHFELD
A fake news website has
been pumping out bogus stories
about local news in Brooklyn
and the rest of New York
City for several years, fooling
untold numbers of New Yorkers
with articles that seem superfi
cially plausible and look
convincing, but lack any morsel
of truth.
The Buffalo Chronicle —
a fake news website which
gained infamy in 2019 by publishing
sham stories on the
Canadian parliamentary elections
— has in recent months
targeted local news consumers
in the Big Apple, putting
out a stream of fake stories
about supposed happenings at
the hyperlocal level.
Convincingly Plausible
The phony-news site’s secret
sauce, seemingly, is the
website’s legitimate-looking
presentation, along with plausible
quotes falsely attributed
to high-powered offi cials or
unnamed advisors, and nonfl
ashy headlines about topics
important to local consumers.
Many “stories” concern
supposed initiatives by Gov.
Kathy Hochul, a Buffalo-native,
to advance economic development
COURIER L 10 IFE, FEBRUARY 4-10, 2022
in Kings County.
Just this past week, the
Chronicle published an article
claiming Hochul was planning
to double the acreage of
Coney Island’s beach, build a
new amusement pier, and fi ll
Coney Island Creek to create a
new park — all part of a massive
revitalization plan for the
waterfront nabe. All of those
plans are made up, but they’re
presented in a convincing
way, with a sober headline,
fake quotes from Hochul and
unnamed aides, an image of
Hochul conducting a press
conference at Deno’s Wonder
Wheel Park, and even a professional
looking rendering of
the governor’s supposed plans
for the area.
The article’s paucity of
truth didn’t stop it from making
the rounds on social media
— as it was viewed thousands
of times, with hundreds
of likes, comments, and shares
on the Chronicle’s Facebook
page, along with neighborhood
Facebook where excited locals
shared the “news” with others.
“I think it’s a serious issue,”
said Michael Quinn,
owner of Feltman’s hot dogs
and a Coney Island native who
co-admins the Everything
That’s Coney Island Facebook
group. “It has nothing to do
with right to speech or whatever.
It’s basically fraud.”
After the article was
posted in the Facebook group,
Quinn alerted other moderators
and had the post taken
down. Later, he wrote a Substack
The homepage of the fake news website “The Buffalo Chronicle.”
post entitled “Somebody
Please Stop the Buffalo Chronicle,”
alerting web denizens to
the Chronicle’s bogus nature
and calling for laws cracking
down on it and similar outlets.
While he shared the essay
widely, it didn’t have anywhere
near the reach of the
Chronicle’s original article.
Although the Chronicle
has been banned from Twitter,
it continues to operate
a Facebook page with over
3,000 followers. Over the past
several months it’s put out a
number of specious articles on
supposedly-major urban initiatives
Screenshot
which, as it turns out,
were not reported anywhere
else, because they’re fake.
A spokesperson for Meta,
Facebook’s parent company,
did not respond to a request
for comment.
False Hope
Readers of the Chronicle
would be undoubtedly fascinated
by the news they consume,
including that Hochul
is in advanced negotiations
with Major League Baseball
to bring an expansion team to
Brooklyn at a brand new sta-
Continued on page 26
The creator calls his
fake news site “social
art, designed to
inspire the collective
aspirations of the
body politic.”