A REAL APRIL FOOL'S DAY

While I am not Roman Catholic by faith (I am United Methodist, for the record), I have been closely watching the ongoing coverage regarding Pope John Paul II's declining health. It was interesting to see Fox News Channel slip on the 'ol banana peel during it's coverage Friday (April Fools' Day; coincidence?).

As I was enjoying lunch on the job about 1:25 Friday afternoon, many of the TVs in our break room were tuned to FNC. At the time, they were airing a briefing or Italian media coverage of some type (There was Italian with an English translation). All of a sudden, a producer or some other type whose microphone was "hot" started saying "Pope is dead! Pope is dead!". Shepherd Smith, who was manning the Fox anchor desk, went into the Pope's obit script saying that the Holy Father had actually died.

Problem was, he had not passed on, and has not to this point.

FNC had to apologize for the screw-up about a half hour later. Appearantly, they simply picked up on reports from the Italian media which were reporting the Pope's demise a bit early.

CNN and MSNBC, which had also been running almost continious coverage at the time, also noted the reports but at least cited the Italian media and Reuters and noted that the reports had not been confirmed. Fox did not do so.