News outlets warn of 'April fools' pranks; phony e-mails and releases; the Thursday pulse

The April fools dilemma for news organizations: how to make sure a story that looks quirky and maybe a tad goofy, is legit. You'd be surprised how many fake and outlandish e-mails and press releases make the rounds of unsuspecting editors in newsrooms across the country.

Ed Cavagnaro, news director at KCBS in SF,  says the station got a dose of fools 'stuff. "Someone sent out a release of BART, (Bay Area rapid transit) saying they would be 'expanding to the North Bay. It looked real."

It wasn't.

Cavagnaro told me that editors generally look more closely at off-beat items that invariably hit the desk on this famous day for pranksters, a la Howard Stern.

A staffer from AP Radio in Washington told me that corporate sent internal memos to both the radio and print side of the wire service to look out for "suspicious" and or "unusual" e-mails/releases, given the fact that April 1 was upon us.