A regional daily is apologising to its readers after publishing a spoof April 1 press release as a page lead in its business supplement – eight days after the date.
The Archant-owned Eastern Daily Press this week reported the bogus story of a 50 metre tall banjo statue to “rival the Angel of the North” which was set to dominate the Norwich skyline.
Business editor Shaun Lowthorpe said in a statement: “On a light and funny story we were hoaxed by a normally reliable source.
“Our publication was eight days after April Fool’s Day and our defences were down – the firm has apologised to us. We, in turn, are apologising to our readers.”
The spoof was the brainchild of Norwich business The Great British Banjo Company, which is currently named among EDP’s Future 50 firms.
Its press release claimed that world-famous sculptors Anthony Gormley and Anish Kapoor were rumoured to be involved in the project.
The banjo would be placed in a key location near the A47 Southern Bypass and would be visible to traffic approaching Norwich from as far away as five miles.
Construction was “currently under construction in the company’s Norwich workshop,” the press release said.
Managing Director Simon Middleton said he sent a press release which he thought was “so absurd” it would never be used.
He joked: “We’ve hardly got room to make banjos, let alone a 50 metre tall statue.”
He said an EDP reporter contacted Jet Social, which manages his press office, to ask whether the release was true. It confirmed it was not true – but apparently the story was written up elsewhere in the office.
He said: “Maybe one hand did not know what the other was doing. I’m sorry if the release has caused any problems – I feel a bit mean now – but we’ll certainly be sending out a spoof next year. I bet it’s not used, though.”
The press release – which was clearly marked April 1 – was used on Wednesday as a page lead story in the EDP’s business supplement.
Simon said: “I sent it by midday on April 1 and heard nothing, so I assumed it was not being printed. I’ve got an internet alert for’ banjo’ which ‘pinged’ eight days later and when I clicked through, the link didn’t work.
“Apparently the EDP had removed the story, but it still went into print.
“You’d have thought they would have asked how Anish Kapoor or Anthony Gormley had come to be involved. And what about planning permission? It’s amazing really.
“The press release concludes with a line ‘we hope that this fabulous erection will be unveiled later this summer.’ I thought that would have given it away.”
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Beyond the obvious oversight, you’ve got to wonder why this story was tucked away in the business supplement. If believed to be true – which it clearly was – surely plans for a rival to Angel of the North would warrant more prominence? No sign of thought in the whole process. Symptomatic of the bash it out to fill a hole mentality encouraged at too many papers nowadays. One would expect better than this churnalism at what used to be a quality newspaper.
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This is the future… stand by for more of the same. Red faces this time but next time… a substantial pay-out maybe. That should focus the mind. UGC. You reap what you sow.
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Demonstrates how weak the editorial leadership has become at Archant following several years of over-zealous cuts… the fact that this story took 8 days to reach print, and that it was so obviously a spoof, confirms that the EDP has become a rudderless ship…
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The ‘fabulous erection line’ might have given it away, or the aforementioned luminaires of the sculpture scene, or the 50 metres high, or anything else for that matter.
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Surely a 50 metre high banjo would make a splash if the desk believed it was true, which they obviously did.
Amazing it sat ignored for a week given that kind of background.
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I cannot believe this got printed. I agree with comments above. Cuts have left some/a lot of newspapers vulnerable to cock-ups like this. Some overworked hack has cut and pasted this story and not had time or bothered to question it at the source. Turned out to be a very successful bit of PR in the end for the company.
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“We were hoaxed by a normally reliable source.”
Wasn’t exactly a fiendishly elaborate fake was it?
Not quite the Hitler Diaries, like.
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You’d think they’d have seen the risks in publishing that. It was a rather hairy banjo story.
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Not saying where this happened or which PR firm sent it out, but a couple of years ago a “news release” landed on my desk stating that the PR firm (with a similar name to an ’80s pop duo) was to handle the publicity for the duo’s reunion world tour.
Just a shame PR people haven’t got more to do than set up under-pressure hacks who often can’t think straight by the end of a busy day.
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I’m the guilty party. We wrote this story as a simple April 1st gag. The text was rich with clues that it was a spoof. It was, quite literally ‘incredible’ (or so we thought). It appeared on social media and seemed to amuse many of our followers. We included the newspaper in the distribution because they know us well and we thought (wrongly) that they would immediately see the funny side. The best we hoped for actually was that they might run a short ‘funny’ about how we’d try to fool them. In fact they contacted our office on April 1 to ask if it was true, and they were told that, sadly, it was not. As far as we thought that was the end of it. Small joke. Damp squib. We were astonished when it appeared as a Business supplement page lead 8 days later. I’ve spent half my day apologising. It was, as they say, ‘a bit of fun’. If anyone had even slightly checked any single part of the story it would have been evident that it was a spoof. We meant no harm… we’re just a little banjo company after all!
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UGC’s the future though…absolute clown shoes from the editorial team all round…
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‘Archantlifer’ has is spot on.
Heed the warning!
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Sad to see a once great paper now appearing so regularly on the cock-ups wall of shame. At least their apology didn’t make it worse this time around.
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I think April Fool jokes lost their novelty appeal decades ago.
I once worked for an editor who took a Guardian spoof absolutely seriously, wrote an earnest leader about it, was ridiculed for months afterwards, and never really regained his credibility.
Let’s face it, it’s all a bit juvenile and it takes little or no talent to write an utterly convincing spoof. I don’t think serious newspapers should get involved in this kind of thing.
Re the EDP, it fell short on several counts here. Why did the story lie around for eight days without anyone appearing to notice it? Why did it lead the business page? If it’s true the paper checked it out, why wasn’t it spiked immediately? Sounds like the whole operation was slack on this occasion.
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I think things have changed. Readers now tend to be more savvy and their enjoyment comes from going through papers playing “spot the April Fool”.
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This says everything about the current state of newspapers. A once admired ‘Daily” newspaper slabs in a press release eight long days after receiving it without apparently even stopping to think about the content – Antony Gormley, Anish Kapoor, 50 metre high banjo towering over Norwich. Even if they didn’t get the joke, how could this not be followed up and why oh why was it consigned to the business pages?
I’m afraid I don’t agree with Brassington’s po-faced take on April Fool jokes (above). There’s nothing wrong with a bit of fun. Except of course that you generally expect the penny to drop with the person on the receiving end.
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Just to pick up on the points made about the positioning of the story in the paper.
With the local link for the EDP being the Norwich base of the company concerned, I would think the front of the business pages would be about right – would people in East Anglia care enough about a potential rival to a statute hundreds of miles away?
Bad error though.
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I work for JP and because of our ridiculous working practices, lack of staff etc you can sometimes have the same story in three times in different sections in one week. Or twice in the same edition…………….and not picked up by an overworked page editor at the end of a 12-hour day
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At least this was intended as a joke. What about all the misleading and mendacious press releases which are published in full by newspapers every day of the week. No wonders the readers are giving up.
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News Judge – the EDP is based in Norwich, the county city of Norfolk which represents 80% of its patch. Its most far flung readers live, at most, 80 miles from Norwich. It also has a Norwich edition and is the sister paper of the Norwich Evening News with which it shares much of its content. And the statue was not just being made in Norwich but based just outside, on one of the counties two main roads. So yes, it would have warranted more prominence. Had it been true.
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I’m a bit lost on this one. Is there going to be a banjo statue or not? Personally, I prefer the accordion but that may be a tad hard to sculpt. To put this to bed does anyone else here recall the superb Croydon Advertiser spoof in the 80s, in which it was reported the 719-ft high TV transmission tower at Crystal Palace was to be taken down for “repainting”? Who would have swallowed such utter bilge? Er… look, it was all a long time ago.
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Interesting that two of the main stories on htfp mention the Eastern Daily Press: one that it has the most nominations in the regional press awards; another that its editorial control is so loose it fell for an obvious hoax. Also, it has a nomination in the Best Business Reporter category. Presumably it was scoops such as this one which secured that accolade.
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There’s another interesting point to this as well. On April 1st the EDP ran its own April Fool’s joke story.
This was, wait for the ROFL, that a Loch Ness monster style creature had been found living underwater on the Norfolk Broads.
The AF joke was over two pages with a badly mocked up picture of a monster type creature emerging from a Broad.
This was so poor that it dissipates any sympathy one might have for the EDP to get fooled by what on any view is a much better April Fool than they could come up with themselves.
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Thank you Biter. We didn’t know about the Nessie thing. I’ll stop feeling guilty now! You’re right… our Banjo Of The East was better!
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