Small dogs and tall stories
Parody site Watley Review recently had fun at the expense of a small dog race:
Among other findings, the analysis determined that the Chihuahua is actually a type of large rodent, selectively bred for centuries to resemble a canine.
The story spread fast, so Urban Legend debunking site Snopes pointed out that the story is fake, and also that Watley makes no attempt at pretending to be about real news, as this amusing disclaimer demonstrates (disclaimer page is linked with text "Please read before quoting us in court" on every page!)
The Watley Review is dedicated to the production of articles completely without journalistic merit or factual basis, as this would entail leaving our chairs or actually working. Names, places and events are generally fictitious, except for public figures about which we may have heard something down at the pub. All contents are intended as parody and should be construed as such. We have no agenda other than the depletion of Uncle Zeke's whaling trust fund and the dutiful appreciation of smooth, smooth liquor. The Review is updated every Tuesday, when the hangovers wear off.
This, of course, never prevented Norway's largest newspaper VG from running it as a real story today!
We call this time of the year "agurktid" for the news media, literally "cucumber time," because newspapers have few real news stories to tell, so they write about things like strangely shaped cucumbers... and small chihuahuas.
Update: VG has now deleted the article. I saved the original text of it in the Norwegian section of my blog.
11:27:19 AM 
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