AAN Association of Alternative Newsmedia

TV Newsman Resigns After Reporting Alt-Weekly Fiction as Fact

By AAN Staff

october 12, 2005 02:50 pm

Nashville TV news reporter James Lewis recently ended a segment on an undercover prostitution sting by claiming that the Nashville police department arrested a McDonald's employee for selling a Big Mac to a hooker, thereby violating a law against "giving nutrition to a prostitute." Turns out Lewis was a victim of Google -- which he used to find the December 2004 Nashville Scene humor column in which the apocryphal anecdote was reported -- and his own credulity, which prevented him from recognizing obvious signs that the piece was a joke. Like, for instance, the fact that the column is called "The Fabricator." Lewis tells the Scene that it all worked out for the best since he wants to get into the real estate business anyway.