The Smoking Gun
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Available in | English |
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Owner | William Bastone, Andrew Goldberg, and Joseph Jesselli (TSG Industries Inc.) |
Created by | William Bastone, Barbara Glauber, and Daniel Green |
URL | www |
Commercial | yes |
Registration | none |
Launched | February 13, 1997[1] |
Current status | active |
The Smoking Gun is a
History
The
The cable network truTV, formerly Court TV, purchased The Smoking Gun, as well as the website Crime Library, in 2000.[3] A series of the same name premiered on Court TV in 2005, which featured some of the site's stories and assorted sketch humor, using string puppets. This series was later moved and shown on Adult Swim.[4]
The site published its second book, The Dog Dialed 911: A Book of Lists from The Smoking Gun, in October 2006.
From March 2008 until January 2011, on truTV, The Smoking Gun sponsored a cable television series called The Smoking Gun Presents: World's Dumbest.... The series was originally known as World's Dumbest Criminals, but was re-titled World's Dumbest... and began covering other topics. William was a cast member on the show alongside Smoking Gun writer Andrew Goldberg. They left the show after season 1. As of January 2011, the program was re-titled again to truTV Presents: World's Dumbest...
In June 2014, The Smoking Gun was sold back to William Bastone.[5]
Investigations
The Smoking Gun began to conduct investigations of
In 2006, the site uncovered widespread fabrication in James Frey's alleged memoir A Million Little Pieces. This investigation led to a public rebuke of Frey by talk show host Oprah Winfrey, who had previously endorsed Frey's book as part of her Oprah's Book Club. Frey's book, describing his alleged years of drug and alcohol abuse and subsequent recovery, contained a number of descriptions of criminal or otherwise outrageous incidents.[10]
In 2010, the site revealed financial irregularities in
References
- ^ "TheSmokingGun.com WHOIS, DNS, & Domain Info - DomainTools". WHOIS. Retrieved July 11, 2016.
- ^ "Mug Shots | The Smoking Gun". www.thesmokinggun.com. June 12, 2014. Retrieved January 10, 2022.
- ^ "Backgrounder: William Bastone". NYU Journalism Bullpen. Retrieved August 16, 2015.
- ^ Smoking Gun TV (TV Series 2005– ) - IMDb, retrieved January 10, 2022
- ^ "Meet The New Boss, Same As The Old Boss: A Note From TSG World Headquarters". The Smoking Gun. June 24, 2014.
- ^ Anderson, Nate (August 7, 2009). "The Smoking Gun exposes PrankNet as Internet badboys cower". Arstechnica.com. Retrieved October 16, 2010.
- ^ Time Waster (August 6, 2009). "Another Pranknet Child Molester". The Smoking Gun. Retrieved October 16, 2010.
- ^ "Diboll woman says allegations against Markle are not shocking". KTRE.com. August 8, 2009. Retrieved October 16, 2010.
- ^ Telephone Terrorist, The Smoking Gun, August 3, 2009
- ^ "A Million Little Lies", The Smoking Gun, January 4, 2006
- ^ Sontag, Deborah (October 11, 2012). "In Haiti, Little Can Be Found of a Hip-Hop Artists Charity". The New York Times.
- ^ "Wyclef Jean admits his Haiti charity 'made mistakes'". the Guardian. January 19, 2010. Retrieved August 2, 2022.