A homeless kitten caught the attention of Chicago Tribune readers when a glitch in the company’s site landed the animal a centerpiece photo.
“The digital editor on duty of the site saw that our main centerpiece story was replaced with this content item, and took it right down within minutes,” the Tribunes’s social media Any Guth told TODAY.com.
The homepage photo was pulled from the Tribune’s gallery of pets who need adoption.
The quick swap wasn’t enough to keep cat lovers from blowing up the phones of the host rescue organization Feline Friends, asking if the cat referred to as Benton was still available for adoption.
Shortly after, news outlets began to circulate Benton’s short-lived fame.
“We have definitely experienced an increased interest in him since yesterday,” Lisa Ward from Feline Friends told TODAY.com.
The rescue organization has received around twice as many calls requesting animal adoptions since the occurrence. The mistake not only appears to have helped Benton’s chances of adoption, but also those of other rescue kittens.
The Chicago Tribune isn’t taking the mistake lightly and publicly apologized to readers on Twitter for the slip-up.
“Thankfully, our readers were very kind about the oversight, but this test content item pushed down a story about the Chicago funeral of actor Dennis Farina, and sat by several very serious stories including the WikiLeaks court ruling and the death of former US senator Harry Byrd Jr,” Guth commented.