- December 25, 2024
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Apologies to any government agencies who received nasty phone calls this morning about the stories on our fake front page this week. We promise to be better behaved, at least until next April.
You might be asking, Why did we write fake stories on April 3 — a full two days after April Fool’s Day?
Ha! Because it’s fun!
In fact, if anyone else has a short, fake news story they’d like to submit, send it to me at [email protected], and maybe we’ll keep this going, like the Palm Coast version of The Onion. But don’t worry — it would be clearly marked so no one mistakes it for a real story.
Newspapers and websites around the world had spoof stories on April 1, including United Kingdom-based Metro, which proclaimed that a ban on selfies was in the works. The Mirror wrote a story saying the boy band One Direction was being outlawed from North Korea unless the singers cut their hair super short like Kim Jong-un. ThinkGeek wrote a story about a new plug-in for your car: the Flux Capacitor, ala “Back to the Future.”
Our spoofs online reported that Flagler County was paying $1.3 million to grind up coquina sand so that it would be more like Daytona Beach’s sand. The best part was seeing all the comments on Facebook, some of which praised the county for finally getting rid of that sticky sand, and some saying it was such a waste of money! Jonathan Simmons also wrote a story claiming cows were wearing rubber boots to fend off flesh-eating fish in the mud.
And now, it’s time to fess up about our fake front page. The city of Palm Coast is not, in fact, raising the red light camera fines. And, the windsock is actually next to a helicopter pad and is not used for hurricane preparedness. And, the large pile of dirt is not actually an ant pile but is a sign of progress on the sidewalk being built along Matanzas Woods Parkway.
No fear. The world is as normal as always. Carry on!