Newspapers consider spoof April Fools' stories 'unsuitable' amid sombre mood
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Whether out of timidity or principle, the majority of national newspapers resisted the temptation to run April Fools' stories yesterday.
With acres of newsprint devoted to Queen Mother obituaries and details of her funeral arrangements, only the Daily Star and The Guardian chose to lighten the otherwise sombre tone of their 1 April editions with "wind-ups".
In a story headlined "Return of the Dodo", the Star informed its readers on page 23 that the "funny-beaked tropical bird" had been resurrected by scientists at Bournemouth University using the DNA from a museum's dodo skeleton.
In its second section, The Guardian ran a 1,000-word spoof interview with Harmony Cousins, a fictitious actress who by 25 had lived out many of the celebrity clichés.
The other broadsheets, including The Independent, did not run April Fools' stories. The Times has not done so in years, nor has The Daily Telegraph, which said its decision had nothing to do with the Queen Mother's death.
John Ridding, deputy editor of the Financial Times, said: "It is not something we tend to do on a regular basis – if ever. I can't remember the last time we did one."
The Daily Express also chose not to test out its readers' sense of humour. Its news editor, Howard Smith, said: "It would not have been suitable to put out an April Fools' in a paper so dominated by the Queen Mother's death. We have done them in the past but with sombre news pages and a 48-page supplement, it would not have looked right."
The Daily Mail said it would have been inappropriate – and possibly offensive to its readers – to run a spoof story so close to the Royal death. A newsdesk executive at The Mirror said they were "too preoccupied" with the Queen Mother to run an April Fools' joke.
The Sun said it had not run a spoof story in its news pages, although it did run advertisements for retro Virgin mobile phones the size of a housebrick that were "So out, they're in". A half-page advertisement paid for by Tesco promoted a new range of genetically-modified "whistling carrots".
However, Reuters, the international news agency, unwittingly fell victim to a joker by running at face value a Harrods press release stating that it was about to float on the stock exchange.
Reuters, which prides itself on its coverage of business stories, later ran an updated version of the story with the revised headline "Harrods plays April Fools' share float hoax".
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