Ok, I did a little research here and have determined that this is indeed a HOAX, likely an April Fool's prank that went off a bit early.
My evidence for this:
The domain is registered to one "KLAF Television", with fake contact information. I couple this with the fact that poking around on
KLAF's website revealed the
following information:
Quote:
Disclaimer
Ok, ok, you got us. Yes, this is a FAKE news story website. The stories you read here are untrue. Completely farsical. A flim-flam. Jokes, misnomers, whatever you want to call it. The bottom line - we made this stuff up.
So, why would we do this? Is it because we are immature malcontents with an internet connection and too much time on our hands?
Well, maybe. But more than that, we are just tired.
We are tired of sloppy "Journalists" who are less interested in reporting news than they are in beating everyone else to the punch. The media today have completely lost sight of the standards and practices Edward R. Murrow held in such high esteem. Why? Because it's no longer about getting the news to you, it's about getting the news to you FIRST. It's a ratings game... A race to see who can be the first one to report whatever little tidbit of social misfitery that's creeped up today. The integrity part of Journalistic Integrity has been left completely by the wayside, and reporters / writers / disc jockeys / what-have-you are simply scraping sites like Fark.com and BoingBoing.net without so much as a verification call.
Are we proud of ourselves? No. Not even a little. We're just doing what we can - as little as it may be - to attempt to reintroduce the practice of researching a story before it is reported as news. We do not consider it a victory to have a fake news item reported in legitmiate news sources. We will consider ourselves victorious when we begin seeing our stories (and other fake news stories posted on link propigation sites) bypassed because they failed a simple verification test. We will hold our heads high knowing that we and others like us have finally succeeded in introducing a bit of accountibility in the media. Why is this our job? Well... it's not just our job. It's EVERYONE's job. Everyone should demand accountability and integrity in the news reported to us, the general public.
Joe and Bill
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I, for one, find this joke to be in EXTREMELY poor taste and will be removing the full text of the article from my previous post. I'll leave the link for the curious, but I don't want to propagate this horrible hoax.