School paper Obama joke touches on race, Naziism

COBB COUNTY, Ga. — Parents are upset after an article meant to be an April Fools' Day joke in a school newspaper ended up calling President Barack Obama a Nazi.

The article was published in the newspaper at Sprayberry High School in Cobb County.

Students told Channel 2's Ross Cavitt the article, entitled, "Top twenty reasons why Obama should not get re-elected," in Sprayberry's The Zinger was meant to be a joke.

Parents are upset not only by what the article said, but also that the faculty adviser approved the article to be published. Within the article, the newspaper listed reason such as "He's black" and "He's a Nazi."

Once the article was published, it started going viral on Twitter and Facebook.

Parents got a hold of it and started calling school administrators. Administrators put up an apology on the Sprayberry website saying in part, "We would like to say that the article was meant as a piece of satire.

"The article was published in our April Fools' section of the newspaper The Zinger and was meant to be a comedic take on the media's comments on the president. …We realize that this did not come off as we intended, and we sincerely apologize for offending anyone."

School officials said they read the apology during morning announcements, enforcing the fact the article was meant to be satirical.

"Unfortunately this was a poor attempt at humor (that) didn't come across very well. The students have apologized for it. They sent out a video message to the rest of the school this morning and they posted a message on the school website as well," Jay Dillon with the Cobb County School District said.

"I don't take that as an excuse. I don't think there is any excuse for what was done and I don't think that an administrator should have approved any such article to be printed in a school paper. I think it divides the students. It teaches them to dislike one another. It wasn't appropriate at all," parent Danisha Crummie said.

Some of the parents that spoke with Cavitt said they would like the faculty adviser to face some type of discipline for what happened.

They said the adviser showed poor judgment, but school officials say the adviser will likely not be punished.

Parents worry the article might cause tensions among some of the students.

WSBTV