Farewell to a foolish tradition

Let the April foolishness end.

With so many important things to report, why fabricate a silly story and doctor a photo every April 1 and put them on the front page of The Press? Life is serious. News is a serious business. It's time Press editors got serious or got out of the newsroom.

Moose ticks matter. Who would ever believe there's a money tree growing on the Rathdrum Prairie anyway?

Presidential candidates weaving their own renditions of Common Core; now, that's news. Obama changing water to wine or peddling free gas to get re-elected? That's just stupid.

Guns, wolves, gays.

News, news, news.

April Fuhl, riches without work, helicopters holding up a huge portrait of the lake.

Silly, dumb, ridiculous.

A poll running on cdapress.com shows more than half the voters want the annual prank to die a painful death. And who knows better about just about everything than online readers who vote anonymously in opinion polls?

It is with no small sense of shame that we apologize for all these years of passing fiction off as front-page fact on April Fools' Day. Our intent to add a little levity while reminding readers to be skeptical of all the information they're consuming has only backfired. After all this, we realize, the joke was on us.

That's why you didn't see an April Fools' gag on the front page of today's paper. You won't see one there on April 1, 2016, either, or anytime in the foreseeable future.

April Fools' Day is for fools.