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Student obituary Thursday night spurred by false tip, April Fools prank

By CM Life Staff Reports on April 1, 2011 4:00 am in News / 5 comments

 

Editors at Central Michigan Life received a phone call on Thursday claiming that a student had died the night prior — a news tip that was later found to have no validity.

In the editing process, the alleged death was not confirmed with an external source, such as the Dean of Student’s Office or with the family itself. Staff members moved forward with the story with a “family representative” and two hometown friends as sources.

The individual who claimed to speak on behalf of the family provided a series of details about the student, but was unreachable when editors discovered the tip had been falsely given.

For just over an hour, the story appeared on www.cm-life.com, and a link was posted on CM Life’s Twitter and Facebook pages. That link received about 280 views in that time, before the student contacted editors himself to inform them he was in fact alive. The posts and story were immediately taken down.

CM Life does not condone the submission of false news tips, and the paper will work to ensure all news tips are carefully checked in the future.

We apologize to anyone who may have been hurt or affected by the post.

 

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  • Forti1bs

    Unbelievable, shame on cm-life for not fact checking their sources.

  • Jackie L.

    Regardless of the story’s veracity, the last two lines of the article were in very poor taste:

    Zemky said Jackson died watching his favorite show, “The Twilight Zone.” The episode, called “Escape Clause,” was about a man who sold his soul to the devil to live forever.

    CM-Life should have edited out such insensitive material in an obituary.

  • Jackie L.

    Regardless of the story’s veracity, the last two lines of the article were in very poor taste:

    Zemky said Jackson died watching his favorite show, “The Twilight Zone.” The episode, called “Escape Clause,” was about a man who sold his soul to the devil to live forever.

    CM-Life should have edited out such insensitive material in an obituary.

  • CMUAlum

    Unbelievable. Unfortunately, this is exactly the type of thing that I have come to expect from CM-Life these days. Many reporters show a reckless disregard for the truth, looking for the shock and awe of a story. This is just one more example of irresponsible journalism that hopefully someone reigns in soon before CM-Life loses what little credibility it has left.

  • Anonymous

    Wait, people are actually getting upset about this? An April Fool’s joke taken seriously and people are throwing fits? Companies and news sources making fake announcements on April 1 isn’t a foreign concept. I say bravo to the “family representative” for pulling off a prank that caught the attention of at least 280 people!