Have his strings become a little too thick? Monday, a mysterious Twitter account, presented as that of Flammarion editions, announces, first in English and then in French, the death of the writer Michel Houellebecq. Far from panicking the twittosphere and the publishing world, the tweet is taken with humor by Internet users, who recognize the paw of Tommaso Debenedetti in it, before he unmasks himself a few minutes later.
The message carried the springs usually used by the Italian, specialist in this type of hoax: a recent Twitter account, an announcement of the death of a personality from the world of the arts.
The media and the general public have not fallen for the trap this time around. The announcement was indeed suspicious: it did not emanate, for example, from the official account of Flammarion editions.
Costa-Gavras forced to deny his own death in 2018
Have the Italian’s methods become too crude? Or have the media and the general public become more seasoned in checking content on the Internet? Three years ago, director Costa-Gavras was forced to deny his own death.
Director Costa-Gavras forced to deny his own death https://t.co/WPFiSLssoI via @ 20minutesCult pic.twitter.com/afhn1rWpFT
– 20 Minutes Culture (@ 20minutesCult) August 30, 2018
The tweet was apparently signed by the new Greek Minister of Culture. When she joined the government, she did not have an account in her name. A flaw seized by Tommaso Debenedetti, who created an account in the name of the minister and then announced the false death of the filmmaker. The Italian was not at his first attempt: he had previously virtually “killed” Fidel Castro or Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
Fake interviews with the greats of this world
The one who presents himself as a professor of Italian and history * rose to prominence at the turn of the 2010s, when it was revealed that he had been publishing fake interviews in Italian newspapers for the past ten years. . The most prestigious personalities, from writers Gore Vidal and Arthur Miller, to Cardinal Ratzinger, who will become Pope Benedict XVI, through Mikhail Gorbachev have passed under his pen, he remembered in an interview given in 2010 to the Spanish daily El Pais.
It was precisely in 2010 that the pot aux roses was discovered: an Italian journalist questions the American writer Philip Roth about a critical statement he allegedly made about Barack Obama in the newspaper Libero. Surprised, the writer does not remember having said such words. After research, we must face the facts: the interview
was invented.
“I like to be a champion of lies”
“I like to be a champion of lies”, explained Tommaso Debenedetti to El Pais. The Roman wanted to become a cultural journalist. Unable to sell subjects to editorial staff, he decides to invent them and target newspapers with low circulation, in particular local or right-wing titles, which he considers less observant on the quality of the subjects than the two Italian leading daily newspapers.
This is how the Italian managed to get pseudo-scoops. Moreover, he does not deceive only local newspapers: in 2003, an “interview” with the Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz, Nobel Prize for Literature, which he signs is republished in France-Evening,
he said in 2010 from the magazine The New Yorker. One of his biggest “hits”, he said then.
“I had fun like crazy for ten years”
What motivated this son and grandson of journalists and literary critics to invent interviews? “I had fun like crazy for ten years,” he replied to the New Yorker. The one who also presents himself as a teacher wants to denounce the media system of his country. “I wanted to see how weak the media were in Italy”,
he said to Guardian in 2012. “The Italian press does not check anything, particularly if it is close to their political line, which is why the right-wing newspaper Libero liked Roth’s attacks on Obama. “
Philip Roth, by the way, estimated that Tommaso Debenedetti’s career was “over” when the deception was discovered. Maybe in the newspapers, but not on the Internet. Since then, the Italian strikes regularly on the Web, announcing false deaths, or pretending to be political figures, even if it means risking sometimes
the diplomatic crisis.
In 2016, he manages to deceive brieflyUSA Today, a major American daily, by posing as a publishing house and falsely announcing the death of writer Cormac McCarthy.
“Social networks are the most unverifiable source of information in the world”
“Social networks are the most unverifiable source of information in the world but the media believe them because of their need to be fast”, he analyzed with the Guardian, while he had already announced on Twitter the death of Fidel Castro or that of the Pope.
The last big “blow” of the Italian dates back to 2018, with the false announcement of the death of Costa-Gavras. Given the “failure” of his tweet on Michel Houellebecq, will the Italian reinvent himself, to test, once again, the need for the media to be the first to publish information?
* Contacted, Tommaso Debenedetti declined our interview request.