Plainfield Teachers College Football Hoax

In 1941, Morris Newburger and friends tested newspaper credibility by inventing a football team, Plainfield Teachers College. They submitted fake scores, and the results were printed in multiple New York papers. Expanding the hoax, they created a fictional player, Johnny Chung, complete with press releases, a song, and even a dedicated phone line. The prank gained widespread attention until Time magazine exposed it. In the end, Newburger sent a final press release announcing the team's cancellation due to midterm exam failures, but it went unnoticed.