The Record of Bergen County, New Jersey (right across the Hudson from NYC), ran a headline about the sentencing for a particularly nasty trial: SEVEN YEARS FOR NECROPHILIA.
I thought for a minute that Nora Ephron had been murdered by her son. And so did plenty of other people, judging by the comments that went up within minutes, pleading for them to fix that headline.
Years ago I read an article by H. Allen Smith about his days on a local newspaper, I think in southern Illinois. Their society columnist (a very well-bred lady) had written up a story about a family named Cockburn, who had just been married and gone off on honeymoom. The headline the columnist put at the head of the column, and which appeared in the paper, was,
“COCKBURNS OFF ON WEDDING TRIP”
Mr. Smith said that the columnist ever after refused to talk about this with anyone.
The other stories are amusing but, in my opinion, different from somebody reporting the birth of a daughter as a baby boy. That’s just bone-headed wrong.