Level UP: Fake news using FAKE PEOPLE for stories.

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Cliffs: A fake person who was quoted in places like washington post and MSNBC about student loans is actually a fictional character made up by a student loan agency.

https://www.chronicle.com/article/Drew-Cloud-Is-a-Well-Known/243217
- below is part of story.

Drew Cloud is everywhere. The self-described journalist who specializes in student-loan debt has been quoted in major news outlets, including The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and CNBC, and is a fixture in the smaller, specialized blogosphere of student debt.



He’s always got the new data, featuring irresistible twists:

One in five students use extra money from their student loans to buy digital currencies.

Nearly 8 percent of students would move to North Korea to free themselves of their debt.

Twenty-seven percent would contract the Zika virus to live debt-free.

All of those surveys came from Cloud’s website, The Student Loan Report.

Drew Cloud’s story was simple: He founded the website, an "independent, authoritative news outlet" covering all things student loans, "after he had difficulty finding the most recent student loan news and information all in one place."

He became ubiquitous on that topic. But he’s a fiction, the invention of a student-loan refinancing company.

After The Chronicle spent more than a week trying to verify Cloud’s existence, the company that owns The Student Loan Report confirmed that Cloud was fake. "Drew Cloud is a pseudonym that a diverse group of authors at Student Loan Report, LLC use to share experiences and information related to the challenges college students face with funding their education," wrote Nate Matherson, CEO of LendEDU.

Before that admission, however, Cloud had corresponded at length with many journalists, pitching them stories and offering email interviews, many of which were published. When The Chronicle attempted to contact him through the address last week, Cloud said he was traveling and had limited access to his account. He didn’t respond to additional inquiries.

And on Monday, as The Chronicle continued to seek comment, Cloud suddenly evaporated. His once-prominent placement on The Student Loan Report had been removed. His bylines were replaced with "SLR Editor." Matherson confirmed on Tuesday that Cloud was an invention.

Pressed on whether he regretted deceiving news organizations with a fake source, Matherson said Cloud "was created as a way to connect with our readers (ex. people struggling to repay student debt) and give us the technical ability to post content to the Wordpress website."

Cloud had an elaborate back story. Before being scrubbed from the website, he was described as having "a knack for reporting throughout high school and college where he picked up his topics of choice." Since graduating from college, the site said, "Drew wanted to funnel his creative energy into an independent, authoritative news outlet covering an exclusive and developing industry."

Cloud was not the only facade. The website’s affiliation with LendEDU was also not previously disclosed.

Even without this evidence, close observers would have been able to divine the connection between the two organizations. In 2016, LendEDU and The Student Loan Report posed a series of oddball questions meant to test the lengths to which student borrowers would go to free themselves of debt. About 56 percent of them would take a punch from Mike Tyson, wrote LendEDU.

A few months later, The Student Loan Report issued a report on its own survey asking how far borrowers would go to erase their debt. About 62 percent said they would star in a pornographic film. Forty-three percent said they would hook up with Caitlyn Jenner. The report, issued by Cloud, included a link to a list of student-loan-refinancing companies, LendEDU among them.

Both surveys featured an odd mixture of juvenile and mean-spirited humor. They had another similarity as well: an uncommon typo in the word "meant." Here’s LendEDU on drug use: "56.14 percent of borrowers would abstain from alcohol and drug use for life, if it mean’t that they would have no more student loan debt." And The Student Loan Report on a similar topic: "85% of borrowers would give up smoking marijuana for life, if it mean’t that they would have no more student loan debt."
 
We're puppets. PUPPETS!
 
Before that admission, however, Cloud had corresponded at length with many journalists, pitching them stories and offering email interviews, many of which were published.

John Barron needs to give this Cloud kid a call and set him straight.
 
I'm wondering if that norah bitch in Canada who keeps stoking racial flames against white people is a fake person
 
I'm wondering if that norah bitch in Canada who keeps stoking racial flames against white people is a fake person

Perhaps she is one of George Soros' WoW characters
 
Sounds like this fake character that worked for a student loan agency was on borrowed time...
 
Fuck this Fake People with their Mother fucking Fake stories, I see a lot of fucking adds about banking,online Jobs with supposed success stories that is obviously fake.
 
You can't take the news literally. It's mostly parables based on how you should live your life
 
You can't take the news literally. It's mostly parables based on how you should live your life

Is the news meant to be taken as literal scientific truth? Does literal scientific truth currently exist?
 
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