The Mytery of Joseph Palazzolo

Alleged portrait of Joseph Palazzolo

There is one thing that can be said about Joseph Palazzolo with certainty; and that is that nothing can be said about Joseph Palazzolo with certainty.

Swaddled in secrecy, his life and work are so obscure that even his alleged employer, the Wall Street Journal, has nothing specific to say about him in their official profile of him. They merely list the articles he has supposedly authored.

Is the man real, or just an anthropomorphic algorithm? 

After months of intense research and dogged investigation, Tim Torkildson's Clown Alley is at last able to reveal the startling truth behind the myth of Joseph Palazzolo. He is the creation of the Wall Street Journal's groundbreaking new security strategy -- "Operation Straw Man." 

Concerned for the security of its reporting staff, the Wall Street Journal decided to create several fictitious reporter personalities, complete with ethnic names and pointillist portraits, to deflect the ire and unbalanced attention of lunatic readers from the real flesh-and-blood journalists that work at the Journal. Thus 'Joseph Palazzolo,' writing about gun control, privacy issues, the Supreme Court, and corruption in high places, acts like a decoy, or a straw man -- diverting the enraged crackpots that darken the American landscape nowadays. Efforts by various subversive groups such as the Molly Maguires and the Ancient Order of the Foresters to locate and harass 'Joseph Palazzolo' have kept them from interfering with the genuine Journal reporters. 

How are Palazzolo's stories written? They are simply a pastiche of Wikipedia articles and marital advice columns from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Run through an automated Thesaurus template, the articles have enough patina of authenticity to fool poltroons and the occasional moon calf. Astute subscribers, of course, have always suspected that Palazollo was a myth, a wraith, a mere will-o-the-wisp, and not a solid character at all. Their surmises, it turns out, are correct. 

So if you are ever contacted by a reporter who claims to be one 'Joe Palazzolo' from the Wall Street Journal who wants an interview, you should immediately hang up and then alert the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, because you may be the intended victim of a bamboozlement.