Who Punked The Chamber On Climate Change?

More details are emerging about the group that punked several journalists, including producers at CNBC and a writer at Reuters, with a fake press release alleging a turnabout by the Chamber of Commerce on global warming legislation.

According to sources with knowledge of the hoax's origination, a group affiliated with AAVAZ.org, an international liberal protest concern that helped organize rallies against the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh last month, conceived and executed this morning's spoof. Its "Action Factory" arm plans shenanigans around the international climate summit in Copenhagen this September.

According to Politico, a CNBC reporter read from the release as a "Breaking News' chyron set the scene, but she quickly realized that it was fake. Reuters's newswire issued a short paragraph that quoted from the press release; a Chamber of Commerce spokesperson said that Reuters did not contact the trade group before publishing the article.

Calls to AAVAZ's English-language press office were not immediately returned.