A reporter accidentally published an online story about an alien invasion of his patch on his first day in a new job.
Peter Chapman began working for Plymouth Live yesterday, but uploaded the test story to the website by mistake in the afternoon.
The story in question reported that aliens had landed in Plymouth on Sunday night, and an estimated 500 people had been abducted into outer space as a result.
A subsequent piece about the story’s accidental publication claimed Peter “was button bashing in a frenzy to make sense of the overwhelming, almost extra-terrestrial technology he had been introduced to earlier that day”.
How the story appeared on Plymouth Live
Plymouth Live, the companion website to daily print title the Herald, has apologised for the publication of the story, and editor Edd Moore has taken full responsibility.
Commenting on his mistake, 27-year-old Peter said: “Wow… I’m really sorry. I guess I owe a few pints to people.
“Although, are we sure there wasn’t a landing? There definitely wasn’t? Yeah, that’s on me then. Honestly, so sorry.”
Edd added that the site may need to have a “rethink” of its training procedures.
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Might have been fun on April 1st, but more seriously, it always pays to read copy before publishing it.
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Credit where it’s due, they’d read it. There were no typos in it.
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Well, it’s a good story at least.
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That’s brilliant!
That’s a baptism of fire.
Imagine the web hits!
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made me laugh. But abduction is a serious accusation. I fear the aliens might sue.
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I’ve done worse. Five years into the job I nearly broke embargo which would have let 500 council staff know they were being laid off a week before they were due to be told, fortunately I realised at the last minute and pulled the front page. How we laughed! (we didn’t really).
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Ouch! I hope he had a better second day.
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