A reporter for WSMN-Channel 4 in Nashville, Tenn., has resigned after reporting erroneous information he found in a Google search. The source material turned out to be a satirical piece from the Nashville Scene.

As the Scene reports:

After about 13 years at WSMV-Channel 4, James Lewis has resigned following a piece in which he reported that Metro cops arrested a McDonald's employee when the worker sold a Big Mac to a hooker, thus violating a law against giving "nutrition to a prostitute."

Lewis' recent pre-recorded package about the Metro Police Department's undercover prostitution sting was a solid piece of reporting. The live tag at the end was when everything came unraveled: "In one case, they even arrested a McDonald's employee because the police officer pressed the button and said, 'I'm a prostitute. I want a Big Mac.' They sold it to her and busted her because it's against the law to give nutrition to a prostitute," Lewis said, addressing anchors Demetria Kalodimos and Dan Miller.

A clearly surprised Miller seemed to sense something was wrong: "James, a little more on that. What kind of crime is that, to provide food to a police decoy? It is actually a crime?"

It is, if you believe the weekly "Fabricator" column here in the Scene, which is where Lewis got the information. Last December, the satirical Fabricator -- which ended with the tagline, "The Fabricator is not reality. Sometimes it just seems like it" -- "reported" the McDonald's bit, complete with absurdly funny "quotes" from Police Chief Ronal Serpas. ("It wasn't just a Big Mac; it was a combo, with fries and a Coke," The Fabricator quoted Serpas as saying. "Their bodies are the commodity that is being sold, and the food fuels the body.")

In researching his piece, Lewis did a Google search that returned, among other items, the December 2004 Scene humor column, which he used in his package wrap-up...