Why does anyone believe Ashley Madison?

Every year around this time, the adultery dating site Ashley Madison puts out some sort of press release about how sign-ups from women spiked on the day after Mothers Day.

And every year, a bunch of idiot mainstream publications fall for it.

It's GQ this time.

You're Probably Being Cheated On, and the Ashley Madison CEO is Thrilled: The Q: GQ

I know there's stories out there about how Ashley Madison is essentially completely full of shit about its traffic, particularly its female traffic.

Journalists are dumb.

 

New York Post went with this too.

It's pretty funny/brilliant.

It is a testament to good PR. If you can give the media a story with a good hook, they will run with it, and give you free media. And, it's much more valuable than paid media.

 

How do you know it's not true?

 

Maybe it is. I highly doubt it, though. I'd give it a 0.1 percent chance. Just poking around the Google right now, it seems like most men eventually give up on trying to make a connection after being inundated with little but fake profiles.

The bottom line is that reporters shouldn't take the bait with precisely zero evidence shared to back up the site's self-serving claims. Do they even ask for evidence?

 

The Ashley Madison CEO is brilliant. Most journalists are naïve/lazy and they see this as an easy story that is going to get a ton of clicks.

We don't know if it's true or not, but why wouldn't you take the word of a douchebag who started a website for married people to cheat on each other?

 

The better story would be to have someone join the site and either sing its praises or expose it as being a fraud based on that person's success.

I remember probably 15 years ago, Details did something similar where they had a guy join 10 different dating sites for a month and report on his success. The one he said was far and away the best is the only one of the group that is still around (Match).

 

Isn't this the same group that put out a release a few years ago claiming they eliminated several thousand people from the service because they were unattractive?
News outlets all over ran the story, but I can't recall anyone being interviewed who was actually booted from the service.
Brilliant move, for sure.

 

Oh, and ... Paging Freq ... Paging Freqposter.

 

I think lazy editors might be more accurate.

 

Like he needs a website to make his hookups.

Please.

 

Editors aren't journalists?

 

I'd look into this further, but I'm already in trouble for costing my bosses billions of dollars during the NCAA tournament according to Challenger Gray and Christmas.

But I did manage to avoid sending my wife to the emergency room when my team lost in the NFL playoffs, so I'm bucking a trend there.