April Fools' jokes and Richard Nixon

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April Fools' jokes and Richard Nixon

Published: 01 Apr. 2025, 00:05

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Roh Jung-tae

The author is a writer and a senior fellow at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.

On April 1, 1992, people in the United States heard news that defied belief. President Richard Nixon — who had resigned in disgrace over the Watergate scandal in 1974 — was declaring his candidacy for the presidency on the radio. “I never did anything wrong,” he said, “and I won’t do it again.”

President Richard Nixon tells a White House news conference that he will not allow his legal counsel, John Dean, to testify on Capitol Hill in the Watergate investigation and challenged the Senate to test him in the Supreme Court, in March 15, 1973. [AP/YONHAP]

As you might have guessed, it was an April Fools' joke. The U.S. public radio network NPR had hired a Nixon impersonator to prank its listeners. But can the media get away with this kind of thing? As it turns out, there’s a certain tradition behind it. The origins are often traced back to Jonathan Swift, the British author of “Gulliver’s Travels,” who included in his annual almanac a fictional astronomer named Isaac Bickerstaff — and predicted the exact date of his death. Swift followed through with a fake obituary and even published a mock eulogy in pamphlet form two days later. He timed everything to coincide with April 1. It is considered one of the earliest recorded April Fools' hoaxes.

One day a year, lying is allowed. Scholars debate why this tradition exists and when it began. But the social function of pranks and jokes is clear. Jokes that “cross the line” teach us, through laughter, where that line is — and what society considers common sense. That’s why even the most serious newspapers, which pride themselves on factual reporting, often go out of their way to craft April Fools’ stories: by creating fake news, they aim to highlight the value of real news.

Sadly, that is not the reality we face today. In Korea, the president abruptly declares martial law, and guilty rulings for lying are suddenly overturned. We are inundated with news so absurd that even if it were meant as an April Fools' joke, no one would laugh. The public is sick of so-called real news that feels more ridiculous than fake news.

Politics should give people back their harmless jokes and ordinary, uneventful lives.

Translated from the JoongAng Ilbo using generative AI and edited by Korea JoongAng Daily staff.