[ExI] Is this an April Fool's hoax? was What's wrong with this picture?

[Damien Broderick]

At 04:53 PM 4/6/2009 -0600, Jeff D wrote:

>In the middle of the piece, we find the comment:
>
>"When Phoenix returned to Earth Nov. 10, 2008, researchers analyzed
>the soil collected from the lander."
>
>But I'm sure no Mars mission has returned any samples to Earth.  I
>then went to the top of the Michigan Daily web page and saw that the
>article was dated April 1st.

I assumed this was a journalistic error or confusion (of which the 
world has more than it has journalistic facts). And the Michigan 
Daily is run by kids. Even supposedly groan-up papers make the most 
astounding blunders on every page. In the Philadelphia Inquirer 
recently, an interview with the science fiction genius Samuel R. 
Delany was replete with clangers, and one I liked especially was:

<"His range of characters was unprecedented," said Philadelphia
sci-fi and fantasy writer Michael Swankier, author of The Dragons of Babel. >

Swankier. Dogawmighty. I wonder what Michael Swanwick thought of that.

Damien Broderick