Courtesy of Snopes.com
MediaMatters has posted a lengthy piece on the past of Hoyt. He first came to the attention of the interwebs in 2014 when he was called out by Shawn Donovan, a writer on the Jezebel blog. That story proved to be another hoax from Snopes’ most famous fact-checker, Hoyt.
You can read the full report here but here are a few highlights.
First, this is why Hoyt and similar writers use anonymous pseudonyms. When he used a pseudonym, he said, he was “trying to keep anonymity after he and his wife had split up and he feared for his life.” In addition, he said he used a pseudonym to remain anonymous in high school and college. His academic accolades with real names preceded him and he had full academic credentials.
And then there is the “facade of a behind-the-scenes journalist” part of Hoyt’s storyline. Hoyt told MediaMatters that when he first started writing for Snopes he wore a fake name that was cleverly disguised: “one that I could dress up to not look exactly like me but also not look like a regular character that they would have to ascertain his or her real identity with.”
Read the full story at MediaMatters.
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