CONCRETE, Wash. — The story was first published in the Skagit Valley Herald.
Reporters were told Joel Melom shot himself while taking a selfie. His family insists that was never true. But it was the impetus enough for another story with a very different headline.
"It was 'Black Lives Matter Thug Shoots Self Taking Anti-Trump Selfies.'"
Dana Linderman said it wasn't just the headline on the Facebook post that caught her attention.
"On one side, it had a picture of Trump," said Linderman. "One side had a picture of a black man pointing a gun. I believe it was pointing. And that was the 'thug,' apparently. And so I started reading the story. And it didn't take long to realize it was exactly my ex-husband's story of his death."
Her ex-husband was 43-year-old Joel Melom, who accidentally shot himself while playing with what he thought was an unloaded gun.
"And your ex-husband is not a black man?" she was asked.
"No," said Linderman. "He's a white man."
"And I felt that really dishonored my son's memory," said Linda McCray, Melom's mother. " Because Joel would have voted for Trump if he had been alive."
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But, says his mother, the fake news story has been devastating.
"I was mad and I was hurt and I was sad," said McCray. "The wound hasn't even had a chance to heal yet."
It was nearly as upsetting to the editors of the Skagit Valley Herald.
"We just never realized that it would happen to us," said Colette Weeks, Skagit Valley Herald's director of content. "We're committed to doing it right and integrity means a lot to us. So having someone take our name and use it hurt people in our readership. I know my publisher was very upset."
"It puts a black mark on the journalists who have high ethics and would never think of doing this," said McCray. "And somehow we have to come together on that to identify these people and shut them out of business."
That won't be easy.
When KIRO 7 tried to open the site -- Newsworldpaper.Com -- it had been taken down.
Cox Media Group
