Fish Stories

Patrick Goldstein's column today is about Universal's creative marketing campaign for alien-abduction movie The Fourth Kind. No, not the part about making it look like Paranormal Activity, but rather the part where they posted fake newspaper articles on the film's website attributed to real Alaska newspapers, all in an effort to play up the film's bogus documentary mystique. The papers sued for having their reputations undermined with headlines screaming Anchorage Fisherman's Salmon Haul Doubles After Extra-Terrestrial Anal Probe, and Universal settled, paying $20,000 to the Alaska Press Club (twice their annual revenues). [LAT]