April Fools! Penn State student news outlet kills editor who mistakenly killed Paterno

In a breaking news report posted Sunday morning, Onward State announced the sudden death of its former managing editor due to an animal attack that left him with “severe lacerations and subsequent blood loss.”

It would have been a severely sad event . . . had it actually been true.

Instead, in the spirit of April tomfoolery, student staffers at the Penn State University online news outlet "killed" their old colleague as a joke.

Unfortunately, not many readers took it that way, causing the spoof to become the highest-profile student press April Fools' Day prank of 2012 to go hideously awry.

"Our sources can now confirm: Devon W. Edwards has passed away today at the age of 21,” the satirical story begins.  "Onward State editors received an email minutes ago informing them of Edwards' passing."

Suffice it to say, Edwards is still alive and attending classes at PSU, as this Twitpic helps prove.  The premature death announcement is a heavy wink-wink to an infamous moment earlier this semester when Edwards himself prematurely killed Joe Paterno.

In late January, Edwards abruptly resigned from Onward State.  The resignation came hours after he mistakenly reported that former PSU head football coach Paterno had died from lung cancer.  While Paterno did in fact pass away the next morning, the news was not accurate when Onward State first confirmed it.

In a pair of tweets on the Saturday evening just before the legendary coach's death, the student site announced, "Our sources can now confirm: Joseph Vincent Paterno has passed away tonight at the age of 85.  Football players received an email minutes ago informing them of Paterno's passing."

CBS Sports and The Huffington Post very quickly piggybacked on the Onward State scoop, followed by other media worldwide and an explosion of personal texts and tweets.  Yet, soon after, statements from a family spokesman and Paterno's sons indicated that the legendary coach was still alive, leading to an awkward series of retractions by Onward State and most of the professional press.  In a tweet to readers, the outlet noted, "We were confident when we ran with it, and are still trying to figure out where our process failed.  We apologize sincerely for error."

Now months later, Onward State is apologizing instead for killing Edwards, a joke that fell epically flat, fast.

Soon after this latest erroneous death story showed up online, many Happy Valley netizens criticized it as "umm not funny," too soon, and lacking tact.

Among the tweeted reactions: "I think it was a joke . . . except it wasn’t funny."; "Onward State is such a mess, omg."; "Playing a game where I refresh Onward State’s Facebook page and count the decrease in likes each time."; "Is @OnwardState honestly the worst news organization ever?  Falsely reported a kid dying.  Do they know anything about journalism?"; and "Onward State needs to die."

For its part, Onward State tweeted early Sunday evening, "We sincerely apologize to Devon Edwards, his family, friends and the Penn State community.  He is not dead."

What do you think?  Is it a prank worthy of the date on which it was published?  Or was it a satirical step too far or a piece published too soon, especially in Penn State circles?

Dan Reimold, Ph.D., is a college journalism scholar who has written and presented about the student press throughout the U.S. and in Southeast Asia. He is an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Tampa, where he also advises The Minaret student newspaper. He maintains the student journalism industry blog College Media Matters. A complete list of Campus Beat articles is here.

This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.