The story about how GE will have no corporate income tax liability last year – despite billions in profits – has been told several times. But missing from the wall-to-wall coverage was a press release located here that stated that they will be sending the US government a big “refund” check as a goodwill gesture.

Only trouble was, the release was a hoax. Columbia Journalism Review has the details here

The site, genewscenters.com, is just slightly off: the real GE site is singular, not plural. And there are enough inconsistencies and red herrings scattered throughout the press release to make it obvious that it is fake. Nevertheless, the AP picked up the release as legit and ran it on their newswire, before retracting it 35 minutes later.

I guess telling folks what they really want to hear is still very much in evidence. And it pays to be skeptical, too.