The Daily Targum, a student paper at Rutgers, last week published an editorial decrying a bill in North Dakota that would cause “a picture of a fertilized egg… [to be] considered child pornography.” As you can imagine, the bill in question had no such measure. The paper was fooled by a satirical article. The Targum scrubbed its editorial off the site and offered an apology, though that also seems to have disappeared. From the editorial, which is cached here:
…Pregnant women in North Dakota may now not be able to celebrate and show off their unborn baby the way society has traditionally accepted.
The North Dakota House of Representatives passed a bill that states a picture of a fertilized egg is now considered child pornography. It is now going to the North Dakota Senate to be voted on. This bill, if passed, will make it possible for women and men who have a sonogram as their profile picture on Facebook to be arrested and put on a sex offender registry list…
Here’s an excerpt of the apology, as published in the grand Forks Herald:
The editorial ‘Sonograms, child porn’ ” which ran in (a recent) opinions section was completely inaccurate and based on false sources. No bill has been passed in North Dakota that states a picture of a fertilized egg is now considered child pornography. … We wrote an editorial based on what we later learned was a satirical piece. …We at the Targum deeply regret the error …please accept our deepest apologies for not checking our sources.
