I Found It on the Internet So It Must Be True (Again): Los Angeles Times Quotes Fake Press Release

Aren’t reporters supposed to be naturally skeptical? Lately, they’re acting like they’ve all fallen off a big turnip truck — publishing fake information from the Internet left and right.

First a TV reporter in Nashville reports, with a straight face, that it’s against the law to offer “nutrition to a prostitute“; then my old college colleague Jay Stowe, now at Cincinnati Magazine, similarly screws up.

But this tops those. It’s the LA Times, for gosh sakes. As their correction puts it:

An article in Tuesday’s Section A about tensions over the federal effort to reintroduce wolves into parts of the West wrongly attributed to Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal a statement that Wyoming considered the Endangered Species Act no longer in force and “now considers the wolf as a federal dog.” The statement, which was circulated on the Internet, was purportedly from Freudenthal but was in fact a hoax.

Regret the Error reports:

Quite the nonchalant correction for running a hoax quote on page one. Fortunately, the Casper Star-Tribune of Wyoming has a story that explains everything. It seems a Times reporter mistook a fake press release for the real thing and used the quote without verifying it. The Times owes its readers more of an explanation.

Wyoming is also considering a law making it illegal to offer nutrition to a wolf. (Actually, that’s a joke. Do not publish as fact. Thank you.)

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