Jennifer Oravet, a reporter for the Montgomery, AL, NBC affiliate WSFA, posted what appeared to be her findings about an article in the satirical paper The Onion.

Oravet posted the following to the station’s facebook page.

I contacted the PR firm listed in this article, they claim the article is “ficticious” and have no involvement in the alleged study.

The Onion article states the “public relations firm of Hill & Knowlton have advised the United States to begin distancing itself from the state of Alabama as soon as possible.”

According to blogger Jim Romenesko, a colleague of Oravet’s told him Oravet knew the story was fake all along. Facebook commenters seemed to take the view the Montgomery reporter had been misled by The Onion. You can see a screengrab of some facebook comments after the jump.

TVSpy has reached out to Oravet to allow her a chance to tell her side of the story.  We will update when we hear back.

Here is a sample of the comments from her posting. TVSpy redacted the names of the posters.