Here is a new video from James (“The Amazing”) Randi on the role that the media plays in supporting nonsensical beliefs. In this clip Randi retells the story of The Carlos Hoax, where an actor posed as a psychic channeler and was able to garner all kinds of attention and free publicity from the Australian media. The story is important because it exposes the ease with which the media can be influenced to support unsubstantiated claims, frauds, or hoaxes as long as the story is interesting enough.
Here is a description of the impact from The Skeptic’s Dictionary:
For Alvarez, the creation of the character “Carlos” was a performance/experiment to see how far he could take his creation, but his purpose was not to make people look foolish. He hoped to liberate them from a false belief. However, the result of the performance seemed to demonstrate how easy it is to create a cult from scratch and how, even when the truth is revealed to them, some still refuse to accept it. The “Carlos” hoax also demonstrated how gullible and uncritical the mass media are when covering paranormal or supernatural topics. Rather than having an interest in exposing the truth, the members of the media were obsessed with “Carlos” the phenomenon and transformed his character from a hoax to a myth.