Coastalsurvey

It's amazing what Photoshop can do.

“While lost on a back road in Cuyahoga County last summer, it was the sight of a fading Bicentennial paint job that first gave Surf Ohio founder and CEO, Ron Kaplan, the idea to put his logo on barns. ‘As an artist, I notice such things,’ said Kaplan, ‘and thought, ‘Why not ask the owner if we could spiff up his barn by putting a big ‘Surf Ohio’ it?’’ Getting the permission of that weathered barn’s owner, dairy farmer Virgil Snorkweiler, was the easy part, as Kaplan soon discovered.”

Or at least that was the story Surfers Village dutifully reported March 31. Surfer Magazine also picked it up in its blog section. The only problem is that the story was a put on — an April Fool’s joke.

The real-life Ron Kaplan explains: “What then happened almost instantly is called ‘aggregation,’ meaning that every other web-based surf news alert in the world, from Europe to India to Dana Point, picked up on the story from that news bulletin and ran it over their assorted global news channels as real news.” You can read Kaplan’s account of the hoax at The Surf Ohio Barn Project.

Any cub reporter knows that when you rewrite a press release, you always call for confirmation. Although, Surfer’s Village apparently doesn’t rewrite press releases; it just prints the full text.

Then again, it was a great story, and this guy Kaplan could write a book on marketing. In fact, he’s done something close to that on his website. Perhaps the editors at Surfer’s Village should read Kaplan’s book.