Boy, does that take me back to my radio days! I had to do a live 15-minute newscast weekdays, amongst many other things in that small station. Often I would cobble together wire copy with scant minutes before airtime and sort of read on autopilot. Once in awhile you'd be cooly reading along and hit something like, "PRESIDENT REAGAN SAID THURSDAY HE WAS MOSTLY ENCOURAGED WITH THE RECEPTION HIS ECONOMIC PLAN IS RECEI4995-090328299499059069050-3-=2=2=22=2."
You did what you could.
Reading on autopilot is sort of par for the radio course, which is why it has been a radio station prank since time immemorial to place inside the copy stack a story which begins something like "GEORGE WASHINGTON SAID TODAY HE IS PLEASED WITH THE PERFORMANCE OF HIS TROOPS AT VALLEY FORGE..."
Hmm...All this has me reminiscing about other very satisfying pranks from radio days...But y'all get the idea.
Back in 1995 or '96, at the height of the "militia movement" hysteria by the libs, some friends and I sent a fax announcing the gathering of the Barnstable Militia on the village green at Hyannis, complete with nice graphics of Revolutionary Militiamen and all. We sent it to the two talk show hosts, as a goof.
Well, the newsperson thought it was a genuine press release and read it as part of the news.
People started calling in and wanting to know whether they should bring their firearms ID's or not.
Apparently, some people did show up; and the talk show guys said there were ATF agents all over the place waiting for the mob to arrive.