From the former wholly-owned NYT sub, the Boston Globe:
UFO sightings. SpaceX missions. It’s hard not to find fascination in today’s extraterrestrial happenings. That’s why on Tuesday, when the New York Times published an article with the headline “Fields of Watermelons Found on Mars,” readers were all in.
Lo and behold, the report was published in error, and fields of watermelons have not in fact been found on Mars. Maybe it was author “Joe Schmoe,” or the line “This story is terribly boring,” that gave it away. But within an hour or so of publication, the Times took down the report and clarified that it was a mock article “intended for a testing system” and “inadvertently published.”
Still — the space melons had already made their lasting impression on the Internet, and social media hilarity ensued....
....MUCH MORE
Although not funny in the funny-haha sense the Times' purchase and divestiture of the Globe has its moments. Purchased in 1993 for $1.1 billion it was sold in 2013 to hedgefunder John Henry.
For $70 million.
