(Credit: Twitter, screenshot)

Journalists including New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan were tricked by a phony Twitter account posing as author Philip Roth, the New York Observer reported.  Sullivan later tweeted about having “mistook” the spoof tweeter “for the real thing.”

The phony account, @PhilipRothOffic, didn’t exist when iMediaEthics checked Jan. 1.  But, the New York Times reported that journalist Tommasso Debenedetti was later identified as running the Twitter account and pointed to the Guardian‘s March article on Debenedetti’s various Twitter hoaxes including wrongly claiming the pope, Fidel Castro and others had died.

Hat Tip: Jim Romenesko