The Ham Sandwich Controversy

Associated Content has been thrown in the national spotlight recently because of an article posted by one of their content producers. Nicholas Plagman, a member of the site since September of 2006, submitted a news article about a supposed "hate crime" involving Muslim students and a ham sandwich. The story was a funny take on an absurd hate incident at Lewiston Middle School, where Somali students were actually taunted by a group of students with a ham steak. The piece was published on April 23, and what has occurred since can best be described as a free fall.

Immediately after the article was posted, "Student Leaves Ham Sandwich on Lunch Table Near Muslims, Suspended for Hate Crime" created quite a stir in the Associated Content Community. Within its first 24 hours on the site, Plagman's piece had garnered 60+ comments from opinionated readers that could not believe the outlandish happenings of the story, let alone the equally outrageous quotes. Plagman had submitted the story as a "news" article, which Associated Content gives priority to over normal works. "News" was only half of what the sandwich article was- it was also satire and parody, as Plagman took quotes and events in the already ridiculous true story and embellished them to make it even funnier. Unbeknown to the relatively small AC community, a much larger audience was about to get wind of Plagman's work.

Tuesday evening, FOX News nationally broadcast Plagman's story, unaware that it was partly parody. The FOX report caused an immediate surge of angry phone calls and e-mails from upset parents to be sent to the school system. Plagman's fabricated quotes from the district's superintendent Leon Levesque, Stephen Wessler of the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence, and one of the Somali students targeted in the incident. Plagman cited the Associated Press story as the source for his article, which led the people at FOX to assume it was legitimate. People all over the country began to assault Levesque with hateful e-mails about the incident, accusing the district of overreacting about a simple sandwich. Plagman, meanwhile, has been assaulted with phone calls from all sorts of reporters looking to get an interview about the incident.

Lawyers from the Associated Press are reviewing the case, and may look into pressing charges against Plagman for attributing false quotes to their company. Meanwhile, Associated Content has reacted to the incident as well. They pulled all of Plagman's nearly 150 articles off of the site except for the ham article, which now bears a disclaimer in bold from the editor stating that this story is a parody. The pulled submissions were reviewed in order to recategorize any articles as humor that were originally inaccurately submitted and categorized as news. Meanwhile, the forums are abuzz about the article, and it has been on AC's main page on and off for the majority of the week.

The article has garnered Associated Content and FOX News a large amount of bad press in the last few days, but steps are being taken by both parties to fix the situation.

Sources: The Sun Journal Online