Website Hoax: Jeff Goldblum Not Dead
Daniel Hurst, Brisbane Times: They say bad news comes in threes. Perhaps that explains major media outlets’ rush to believe unconfirmed reports this morning that American actor Jeff Goldblum had died.
As the world came to terms with the news pop superstar Michael Jackson had suffered a heart attack and former Charlie’s Angels actress Farrah Fawcett had died from cancer, the rumour of Goldblum’s death surfaced.
The news has now been revealed as a hoax.
But only after gaining widespread news coverage and generating a flurry of activity on social networking websites. “Jeff Goldblum dead” was at 11am the third-most popular search term on Google. All the other top-10 search terms revealed on Google Trends related to Michael Jackson’s death.
It appears the rumour of Goldblum’s death originated on a spoof website that generates generic news stories about celebrity deaths.
