“What? A retraction?”
“Yes, ma’am, we need to publish a retraction for the Democrats Collude with Korea piece.”
“Eddie, I sincerely hope you’re joking. That article just topped our ‘Most Read’ list for the week!”
“Well, it has, uh, come to my attention that the facts of the article may, um, lack a basis in reality.”
“‘Dear Mr. Lephant… rumor-mongering garbage… no basis in reality… didn’t think you were a GOP mouthpiece… all pachyderms are alike, it seems…’ Fierce comments. Didn’t you tell me a source had reached out with this story?”
“Yes, here’s the original email, ma’am.”
“Eddie, do you receive a lot of tips from this sender?”
“No, ma’am, I only received this one.”
“Small blessings. And Eddie, did you not pursue our usual verification process before you followed through on this story?”
“Well, the sender looked legit—”
“You got an email from trump@fake.news.blog and didn’t check it out?!”
“You gave me an impossible deadline, and I told you, elephants never vet!”
“Alright, alright, maybe we can fight this. The original sender quotes a bunch of online sources. We should do an independent search.”
“Oh, well, I did that.”
“Really? You did?”
“Yeah, I actually found some corroborating details, too.”
“Better and better! What websites?”
“Uh, nastywomanhilary.gop had something. fromputinwithlove.bs had a couple links, while some user named ‘magatrump’ had posted a bunch of comments on cnnliesto.us—”
“We’re doomed. Let’s go write the retraction.”