FOX REGRETS THE ERROR, SORT OF

This morning I spotted this on the front page of FoxNews.com:



So it's true? Trans people will sneak into public restrooms and assault your daughters?

No:

A transgender Wyoming woman was convicted Thursday of sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl inside a bathroom.

Michelle Martinez, who was known as Miguel Martinez before identifying as female, was found guilty of first-degree and second-degree sexual abuse of a minor and could face up to 70 years in prison.

The Billings Gazette reports Martinez, who is a family friend, invited the girl into the bathroom of a home on March 23, and touched her breasts and genitalia before penetrating her. The girl told her mother immediately after the assault, who then reported it to Casper Police.

This took place in a private home, not in a public facility. But the original Fox story, posted yesterday afternoon, didn't say that. It said:



In fact, it was known that the assault took place in a private home. Here's a story from a local radio station that ran three days ago, when the trial was still taking place:

The girl told the jurors, District Attorney Mike Blonigen and Judge Catherine Wilking she came home from school on March 23 while her mother was cooking and several friends were at her mother's and step-dad's residence.

She went upstairs to get a book, went into the bathroom and closed but did not lock the door. She was pulling up her pants when Martinez came in without knocking....

I guess I'm pleasantly surprised that Fox corrected the story at all. Still, there's no note attached to the story acknowledging the edit.

And the original version of the story has shown up at a number of message boards -- at Cafe Mom (under the headline "Yep, they said this wouldn't happen....."), at 4chan, at the gun boards Glock Talk and SIGforum.

Oops.