Remember when Oklahoma QBs Sam Bradford and Landry Jones were arrested in July and charged with intent to sell cocaine? No? That’s probably because it never happened, even though some people were fooled by a “story” from THE OKLAHOMAN by Jake Trotter. But Trotter never wrote that story: a Nebraska fan wrote it and used the paper’s template to publish it and make it appear it came from their Web site.

Needless to say, the paper was not pleased, and THE WIZ OF ODDS notes that today they got their revenge. The paper reached a settlement with the writer of the fake story, James Conradt, for an “undisclosed” sum of cash. He also issued a public apology, took down his Web site, and promised to never publish a story online that appears it was written by THE OKLAHOMAN at the risk of a $25,000 fine.

For his part, Conradt - who works in the IT department at the University of Texas - seems contrite; an overzealous fan whose attempt at “satire” quickly led him down the hot rails to “libel” and “copyright infringement”:

“I naively intended the article to be humorous satire and parody and did not intend readers to believe the article was true,” Conradt said in his apology. “If some readers believed the article was true, that was not my intent, and I sincerely apologize for any misunderstanding or harm that may have caused.”

Even though it should have been obvious to anyone with a whit of common sense that the story was a fraud (the last paragraph should be a dead giveaway), many people did run with the news - hey, it’s on the Internet, so it must be true. Hell, the Chinese government-run media thought that Congress was threatening to move from Washington unless they got a new building because they read it in THE ONION, so who knows what to believe anymore.

As David St. Hubbins might note, when it comes to satire there is such a thin line between clever and stupid. Writing a story claiming that two football players have been arrested for selling cocaine: not clever (there’s no twist or punchline there). Making it seem like it came from a major newspaper Web site, and attaching the name of a real writer to it? That’s just plain stupid.